


You're Not Alone III

by ijustknew



Series: You're Not Alone [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Case Fic, Developing Relationship, F/M, MSR, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-01 03:07:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 37,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14511213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ijustknew/pseuds/ijustknew
Summary: Mulder and Scully's relationship continues to deepen and grow as they progress through events of Season 7. This part picks up immediately following the events of You're Not Alone II with the agents arriving in North Carolina and directly into a fresh crime scene.This is an original case fic within the You're Not Alone world. It contains explicit sexual situations and references to canon events. Some parts of the story WILL contain graphic descriptions of violence and aftermath of crimes. No kink or other character pairings.NOTE TO READERS: You're Not Alone III is the third part of a multi-part series.





	1. Murder as Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In North Carolina, Mulder and Scully begin pursuit of a killer who views murder as art 
> 
> Original case fic in the You're Not Alone world.
> 
> WARNING: This part contains graphic depictions of crime-related violence.

“Damn.”

Dana Scully muttered the expletive under her breath as she stepped out of the rental sedan and square into a mud-thick puddle. She quickly shook off her frustration, thanked God she’d chosen to wear boots, and deployed her umbrella. 

Glancing across the roof of the car, she saw Mulder doing the same. He looked as grim as she felt. 

Three murders in eight months, two more in the last week, the fifth discovered only hours ago, not long after their flight had landed in Charlotte, N.C. On the plane, they had reviewed photos, police reports, and preliminary autopsy findings on the previous crimes. The increasingly ritualistic staging and symbols found at the scenes were what landed the case in their hands.

Typically, Mulder had several of his patented theories which had earned them some seriously odd looks from their fellow flyers as they discussed them. Dana had her own, more conventional theories and they’d discussed those, too, but she had refrained from committing to any particular one, preferring to get an in-person look at evidence and crime scenes.

Neither of them had expected to find themselves on a crime scene tonight, though, not before they’d even had a chance to check into their motel rooms.

As Mulder began the march toward the ordinary, red-brick ranch-style house, Dana followed, dodging what puddles she could see as they wove their way through the asymmetrical gathering of police and emergency vehicles. They were soon enveloped by the familiar sights and sounds of an active crime scene.

The toneless chatter between officers and radio dispatchers punctuated the bright blink and high-pitched whine of camera flashes. Hushed conversations between detectives and forensic technicians played against the backdrop of tears, wails, and bewildered ramblings of distraught family members. Stunned, whispering neighbors stood just outside the yellow-and-black tape, while restless police and emergency personnel roamed around the perimeter.

When they reached the front door, Dana and Mulder flashed their badges to the officers keeping watch. They were provided plastic booties and instructed to put them on before going inside. It wasn’t an odd request, per se, but it was rare enough for Mulder to glance at her with a question in his eyes. She shrugged and mentioned the mud on their shoes. It was reason enough.

After slipping the booties on, they ducked into the house and introduced themselves to the lead detective, David Jessup. He was a ruggedly handsome, middle-aged man of medium height and build with green eyes and sandy-brown hair. He wore a black leather jacket over a navy blue sweater. A large pistol sat snuggly in its holster on his right hip and his badge was clipped to his belt on the left.

He wasn’t particularly happy to see them, but not for the usual reasons.

“This is the fifth member of our community dead. People are terrified to leave their homes. We’ve never seen _anything_ like this,” he said, his voice wavering as he spoke and looked between she and Mulder. “The sheriff said you folks were experts in this kind of thing.”

“We work with unusual cases, yes,” Dana affirmed. 

The detective nodded but didn’t seem particularly relieved. His shoulders remained tense and his voice strained. 

“Anything you can do, we’d be grateful,” he said. “This is just…”

“We reviewed the case files on the way here,” Mulder spoke up and she listened as he asked several questions that they both had. The detective had some answers but she noted his chin and bottom lip quivered from time to time when he wasn’t speaking. He looked on the verge of a breakdown and Dana made a mental note to keep an eye on him. 

“Is the body still here?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the detective muttered, his complexion taking on a greenish hue as he gestured toward the hallway that led back into the house. 

His squeamishness wasn’t really a surprise. The evidence photographs from the previous murders had depicted rather gruesome scenes. Each victim’s abdominal and chest cavities had been sliced open and the viscera and other organs cleanly removed. All had been missing from the scene except the heart, which had been placed in a bowl to the left of the body. 

She knew firsthand that such desecration of the dead was always disturbing, capable of rattling even the most seasoned detectives and forensic pathologists.

After seeing the photos on the flight, she had begun preparing herself mentally to see the aftermath in person, at the medical examiner’s office. She had not been expecting a fresh crime scene with the body still in place, not first thing, and she was was mildly concerned about her own reaction with the shadow of Donnie Pfaster’s attack still falling across her. It’d been only a few weeks ago and although her nightmares had tapered, she understandably feared that what she was about to see might fuel their return.

But that wouldn’t stop her from doing her job.

With a nod to the anxious detective, Dana excused herself and headed in the direction he had indicated moments ago. She took measured breaths as she receded into the house and let herself take comfort in knowing a worried Mulder wouldn’t be far behind. 

She had caught him watching her several times while on the plane, and on the drive here, and knew he would continue to watch over her. She was torn between appreciating it and being annoyed. Ultimately, she accepted it as a fact of life and eased her way between officers and technicians to a doorway. 

She stopped at the threshold, swallowing hard, her fingers going instinctively to touch the small gold cross that lay against her breastbone upon her first glimpse of the room.

Blood. Virtually everywhere. On the walls, the floor, spatter, spray, and mist. Some looked to have been thrown about, like water sloshed from a bucket. It was arguably much worse than the other scenes. 

Stepping tentatively into the room, Dana saw more writing, signs, and symbols that either had meaning or were a red herring meant to confuse and shock local cops.

 _Mission accomplished_ , she thought grimly as she reach into her coat pocket and extracted a pair of surgical gloves. She pulled them on, taking a moment to visually scan the room again before focusing on the bed.

_Dear God…_

A female body lay spread-eagle atop a full-sized bed, width-wise, white sheets stained red beneath it. Skin and muscle cut and peeled back in layers to reveal the empty body cavity. The sternum, ribs, and pelvis were clearly visible. The bones gleamed a sickly yellow-red in the incandescent light from the fixture above the bed.

Dana resisted the urge to cross herself outright at the sight.

She had been a forensic pathologist for nearly a decade. She had autopsied scores of crime victims and visited scores more crime scenes but in all her experience, she had never seen a body more painstakingly dissected by a killer. The previous victims had been staged similarly, but the damage to the bodies had been nowhere near as precise or extensive, or as … _theatrical_.

This scene looked like something out of a top-tier horror movie, a grotesquely detailed creation of special effects gurus and master makeup artists. It was so pristine it didn’t seem real but the copper tang in the air, and the unmistakable smell of excrement and urine pegged it as all too real.

“Scully?” Mulder’s voice was deeper and softer than normal and carried a note of worry amidst horrified awe.

“This took time,” she said.

“These aren’t the first murders,” he said in reply.

“No,” she agreed. Whoever had killed this victim and the others had been doing it for a while, possibly years. This degree of sophistication didn’t happen overnight, or over the course of months.

Dana glanced up at her partner. “Mulder, we need to call VCS. We’re going to need their help.”

He nodded and she felt a wash of relief. A part of her had expected him to reject the idea outright. He truly didn’t play well with others in the field and the members of his former unit were his most outspoken critics in the Bureau. But this… 

 _If there was ever a violent crime in need of VCS’s experience, this is it_ , she thought, staring at the body.

“I’ll call Skinner,” he said. 

She nodded then touched his arm briefly in commiseration before moving toward the bed. She was vaguely aware of the cameras going silent and the men in the room quieting. She could feel their eyes on her, the lone _living_ woman in the room. 

To Dana’s relief, her gorge didn’t rise as she neared the corpse. Instead, she felt the coolness of clinical detachment envelop her mind and slide down along her spine, shielding the more sensitive parts of her nature from the tableau of horror before her and steeling her for whatever came next. 

She heard Mulder talking to their boss in hushed tones while she carefully examined the body. 

The woman’s face was intact. Her hair was mussed and hung down over the side of the bed like a waterfall. It was straight but weighted with blood; she had been blonde. The bowl on her left contained her heart.

Dana leaned closer, one hand holding the lapels of her leather jacket against her chest to keep them from making contact with the body. Her eyes focused on the longest incision, which ran from just below the woman’s chin to her pubis. She noted the larynx, esophagus, thyroid, and trachea had been cleanly removed as well. She would need to see the body at a different angle to see if the tongue had been removed, too. If so, that would be a new development.

Leaning closer still, she studied the edges of the cut. 

Smooth. Straight. Skilled. Just as she’d expected.

A movement on the other side of the bed prompted her to look up. 

Mulder. 

He was looking at the writings above the bed but, after a moment, he turned and looked at the body. He swallowed hard as his eyes followed the opposite end of the incision up to eventually meet Dana’s gaze. His expression was troubled though she doubted anyone else would be able to read him. He had a great poker face when needed.

“Talk to me, Scully,” he said.

Dana straightened and cast a quick look back over her shoulder to see a half-dozen men still in the room, most of them watching her. The lead detective stood at the door, his eyes glued to the dead woman who was bookended by she and Mulder. 

When Dana looked back to partner, she sent him a look that told him she didn’t want to share her thoughts with the current audience, not yet. He gave a little nod and went to disperse their audience while she resumed her study of the body. 

“They’re gone,” he said when he returned.

She shifted to face him. 

“We’re looking for quite possibly a physician, most likely a surgeon or someone with extensive surgical training and residency,” she said. “The work here is too precise to be just anyone with a steady hand and above average knowledge of human anatomy. There’s a finesse and uncanny accuracy to the cuts and locations.”

Mulder’s eyes darted around the room then back to the body. “This is performance art.”

She wasn’t surprised he’d made the same observation she had. 

“I would look for someone with experience in cosmetic surgery,” she said. “They may or may not have formally practiced but they have most certainly trained for it and have been indulging the skill somewhere. If not here in the U.S., then abroad. Europe or South America maybe. This is definitely not a newly acquired skill.”

His eyes flickered with understanding and agreement.

“The hieroglyphs and pictographs are from a variety of ancient cultures and languages,” he said quietly. “I recognize some as Egyptian and Greek, but I can’t translate it. I have a contact at Oxford who can hopefully help with that.”

“What did Skinner say?” she asked, watching him fiddle with his cellphone.

“He’s contacting Violent Crimes. He said they can mobilize fairly quickly and should be here by morning. In the meantime,” Mulder said, “He wants us to go to the motel, get something to eat, and rest while the locals finish processing the scene. Detective Jessup said they should have the body ready in the morning for autopsy. The county coroner is passing it off to you. Apparently he went squeamish after the last one and came here tonight long enough to pronounce death before resigning on the spot. The head of the CSU is taking care of the rest.”

Dana nodded. She didn’t have much of an appetite but food and rest were hard to come by in these types of cases so it was wise to take the time now, before their work began in earnest.

“Let’s go,” she said and stripped off the rubber gloves before following him out of the room.


	2. Star Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What they’d seen tonight was the stuff of nightmares...

Fox Mulder hated being a Bureau travel agent.

He didn’t mind booking flights and rooms for he and Scully, but he hated booking accommodations for other agents – not that he’d done it before. It was booking them into the _same motel_ as he and Scully that he had an issue with.

Mulder and his partner happily toiled away on their own most of the time and in the last month, had found themselves sharing a bed more often than not while on the road. That was going to be impossible to do with other agents around, especially when he was going to have a roommate. 

He wasn’t looking forward to the experience or letting Scully know. 

The last couple of months had been rough for her, and him to a degree, and she had been leaning on him more than she ever had in the past, letting him comfort her as their connection deepened and added a physical dimension. 

But with a nearly a dozen agents descending from Washington and a half-dozen more from the nearest field office, Mulder knew he would not be able to do that for her now. If discretion weren’t necessary, he would just move into the room with her now and hope they could actually sleep without dreaming.

What they’d seen tonight was the stuff of nightmares.

The horrific nature of the scene had reminded him of time in behavioral sciences, delving into the twisted minds of serial killers. He could feel himself edging the abyss already and knew he would sink into it in the days to come. He would prefer to not go back there but this case would require it. There was no way VCS would pass up the chance for “Spooky” Mulder to ply the trade that gave him the nickname, even if they hated him. He’d tried to beg out but Skinner had nixed it. 

“I know it’s not your thing anymore, Agent Mulder, but they’re going to need you on this,” his boss had said then effectively ended any counter arguments Mulder might have made by adding, “And so will Scully.”

Mulder was worried about her. He had been even before they left Santa Monica. They’d been in the middle of a very delicate, emotional, and intimate moment when they’d gotten the call and they hadn’t talked about it since. 

They’d been all business after she’d emerged from the bathroom, each packing, dressing, and emerging in tandem from their rooms to load up the rental car and drive to the airport.  On the flight to North Carolina and drive to Whitesville, they’d discussed only the case. After leaving the scene a bit ago, they’d still said nothing and their silence had continued when they sat at the table in his room and munched their way unenthusiastically through a couple of burgers that might have tasted damned good at any other time.

Now she was getting ready for bed and he was standing at the counter in the motel office filling out paperwork and handing the manager a Bureau credit card. 

A few times in the last year, he’d found himself wanting to leave all this shit behind and ride off into the sunset with his princess, a red-haired, steely-eyed, scientist saint of a woman who rescued him on a regular basis. Leaving behind his life’s work wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon but neither was him calling Dana Scully “his princess” to her face. He’s pretty sure that would result in one of her fists colliding with his jaw. And he’d deserve it.  

At the moment, he doesn’t want to walk away or get punched. He just wants to take her to bed and finish what they’d started last night, before their fellow Feds descended. That possibility remained foremost in his mind when he finally left the office but faded away when, halfway to his room, something caught his eye and brought him to a halt.

His partner. She was sitting by the small, empty swimming pool in front of the motor court, bundled in her coat and kicked back in one of the loungers. She was staring up at the sky which had begun to clear. Her breath was visible on the crisp, damp air and…

Mulder stopped dead in his tracks as he watched the tell-tale, red-orange glow of a cigarette brighten then dim.

_Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, MD, smoking?_  

Intrigued, Mulder pocketed the motel paperwork and his room key then walked over to join her. 

***

“Guess you’re giving up on begin appointed Surgeon General?”

“Guess so,” Dana snorted and looked over at her partner as he approached. 

She supposed she could have tried to hide what she was doing when she’d heard him coming, but there was no point really. He’d already spotted her and the smell would tip him off even if she was no longer holding the cigarette. A better reason still, there were things they didn’t know about one another and he might as well know about this infrequent vice.

“Watch out, it’s wet,” she said as he began lowering to sit on the lounger. Unfortunately, he was too tall and too far down to stop in time. So he just sat anyway, grimacing as he settled.

“And cold,” he complained.

She smirked and he nodded to the cigarette.

“Picking up a new habit?”

“No,” she said with a smile and took another drag. She held the smoke in for a moment, letting the nicotine absorb into her system then exhaled, explaining, “It’s an extremely rare indulgence.”

“Extremely?”

“Extremely.”

He cocked his head and looked at her, curiosity rolling off him in waves. She couldn’t really blame him; she’d never done it when he was around. Her mother and Bill would be shocked, of course. Charlie, well, she didn’t know how he respond. But Missy would have probably brought a different kind of smoke – and wine.

“First time I was fourteen,” she said, holding her partner’s gaze, “I stole one from my mother’s purse and snuck out at night. It made me sick.”

Glittering eyes continued to watch her. “What about now?”

“It won’t make me sick,” she said then leaned her head back against the lounger and looked up at the sky. She was glad the rain had stopped and that the stars had begun to appear. She sighed then took another drag, slower this time, deeper, eyes falling shut. She wished the smoke would obscure the images running around in her brain. They were why she was out here in the damp cold of night.

After a moment, she looked at her partner.

“Have you ever?” she asked.

He shook his head. “There was enough secondhand smoke around my house, I didn’t need to.”

“Both parents?”

“Yeah,” he said and she recognized the shadow that passed over his features. 

_And the Cancer Man._

“Yeah,” she echoed, acknowledging what he hadn’t said with a slight tilt of her head.

He didn’t ask to try now and she didn’t offer. Instead she talked to him about how she’d picked up a pack before every mid-terms and one before every finals and smoked three, and only three, cigarettes each time.

“I would be too keyed up,” she explained. “They helped me relax.”

“So, you’ve smoked the equivalent of four packs during college and med school?”

She smiled and tapped the ashes from the end of her current cigarette into the ashtray she’d pilfered from the nightstand in her room.

“Only if you count MCATs,” she said, adding with a smile, “I graduated a year early.”

He smiled at that and glanced up at the sky. She joined him in perusing the stars and welcomed the silence that fell between them. He was one of the few people she could just be quiet with and not get the third-degree for being contemplative and failing to interact as everyone expected. It was one of the few traits they had in common.

“Why tonight?” he asked after a while and she felt his eyes on her again, probably watching her every expression and movement. If she weren’t used to being in the scope of his profiler’s mind, his attention might make her uncomfortable. But she wasn’t and let him look. She had no desire to hide from him tonight. In fact, that was the last thing she wanted.

“I needed to disconnect,” she said but didn’t elaborate on what and why, trusting him to understand, at least part of it. “Nicotine has a sedative effect for me.”

“Psychologically, the actions of smoking can have a similar affect,” he said.

“Mmmm,” she agreed. “We’re creatures of habit and find comfort in repetitive motions that bring pleasure.”

She didn’t have to see him to know that remark had amused him. But he didn’t stay that way.

“But this isn’t about pleasure,” he commented.

Dana’s eyes return to partner as her lazy humor of moments ago faded.

“No,” she replied.

***

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mulder ventured even though he knew there was a high probability she didn’t and that she might even shut him out for the night.

“What we saw tonight…” she began then shook her head as if trying to dispel the memories. 

He understood the impulse. It was one of the most horrific things he’d ever seen, maybe _the_ most horrific. He suspected it was the same for her. 

“Yeah,” he said and watched her take another drag on the cigarette. He could see her thinking and waited patiently for her to share her thoughts when she was ready. It took several minutes.

“Mulder, what we saw … the reality of what human beings are capable of doing to each other…”

Her voice trailed off, again, and she shook her head, again. 

Glancing down, Mulder saw her hand shaking, too. He didn’t like seeing her like this, not when she was always the most steadfast of them. It made him anxious. But he knew he’d misinterpreted the exact nature of what was troubling her when she spoke again, a single tear forming and sliding down her cheek as she did.

“I want to have a baby, Mulder. I wish I could,” she said, voice trembling. “But when I consider the world I would be bringing a child into, I am left wondering if the desire isn’t a purely selfish one.”

Mulder reached out and touched the back of her hand, just grazing his fingertips across her skin. She turned her gaze to him.

“The desire to procreate is always selfish, Scully, whether the motivation is one of love or a biological mandate,” he said. “But that doesn’t make it wrong. Both are natural parts of being human. They’re how the species has survived and thrived.”

“But are we thriving when one of us can butcher another and still have the temerity to taunt authorities? When history has shown that this act is not the most heinous we can commit upon one another?” she asked, her voice stronger. “And how are we to survive, much less thrive, when powerful men plot against the future of all mankind? When these men rob women of their fertility and make children whose only purpose is to die? If wanting to bring a child into all this isn’t wrong, I don’t know what is.”

Mulder wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t exactly wrong, except that she was. Without children born of love, raised with love, taught to express love in all its positive forms, there truly would be no hope for the species. That people still did those things, still hoped and loved, was reason enough. But that wasn’t a choice for her and this conversation was as much about that as anything else. 

He couldn’t fix it, but he could be with her, whether it was to make love or just sleep. Tonight was the last night they would have to do either for the foreseeable future and he wasn’t going to waste the time.

Standing, he held out his hand to her.

“Let’s go inside, Scully.” 

She hesitated only a moment before putting out the cigarette. She then slipped her hand into his and he helped her to her feet. Once she gathered up the ashtray, they both made their way back to the hotel hand in hand and slipped quietly into her room.


	3. A Moment's Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dana was leaned back against his broad chest, her body cradled safely between his long legs...
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains explicit sexual content

Motel bathtubs left a lot to be desired, even when clean.

The basin was always too shallow to take a really good soak and it certainly wasn’t designed to accommodate anyone over 5’10”. She and Mulder were tucked down into one, though, listening to the irregular drip of the faucet.

Dana was leaned back against his broad chest, her body cradled safely between his long legs. Her arms lay across his, which he had loosely wrapped around her, and his chin was propped atop her head. She suspected she was far more comfortable than he was, but he hadn’t complained and she wasn’t inclined to move unless that changed or the water grew too cool. Not when he had told her they were going to have lots of company at the motel come morning. 

God, she was not looking forward to that but the case was going to require resources that the X-Files didn’t have, which meant more agents and less privacy. 

“Is Skinner coming down?” she asked, lifting a foot to toe at the dripping faucet.

“Not right away,” he said, breath was warm against her scalp when he sighed, “We’ll be working with SSA Stringfield.”

“With or under?” she asked, curious if Mulder would be running the investigation or designated as lead profiler. She knew what her role would be.

“Under,” he said. “Skinner said Stringfield is worried ‘Spooky’ will have them looking for E.T.”

 _Bastard_ , she thought, resenting how he was treated by their colleagues while simultaneously admitting that he didn’t exactly discourage their derision. She wondered if they’d forgotten that his _spookiness_ predated the X-Files, that what unnerved people was his ability to crawl inside the heads of killers.

“You’re profiling?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He sounded worn out already, which did not help her concerns for him. He always paid a heavy personal price for entering the darkness, something his colleagues didn’t really seem to care about. But she cared.

“Do you think there’s any sort of actual X-Files connection?”

“I’m looking into the symbols but there’s nothing in this case that can’t be readily pinned on homo sapien psychopathy,” he said. “I’d love to lay this on some monster, but we both know this is the work of Man.”

“Like Florida,” she said. 

“Like Florida.”

Dana gently drew her fingers along his forearm, from wrist to elbow and back again, stirring the damp hairs there. He spread his fingers on her return and she laced hers with them.

After a moment, she lowered her foot back into the water then turned her head to nuzzle into his neck. He shifted with her, accommodating the change, kissing her brow before resettling his chin atop her head once more. She loved every millisecond of their combined motions, the gentleness, the seamlessness, the intimacy. Things were about to get very complicated for them professionally and it was going to overshadow and overtake these moments between them. 

“I want to make love, Mulder,” she said quietly, “Before this nightmare becomes our existence.”

“You mean mine,” he said and she sat up slowly, glanced back over her shoulder at him. 

“Ours,” she said then placed her hands on the rim of the tub and pushed to her feet. His hands steadied her as she rose then moments later, wrapped a towel around her body. 

She looked up at him as he smoothed his hands over the worn terrycloth, drying her back, then her chest. His hazel eyes were fathomless, gentle, desirous. His touch was purposeful and seductive, effectively narrowing her existence down to the space they occupied, to them and him. It was what she wanted, what she needed in wake of the day’s events and the interruption of last night.

She touched his hands, stilling him, then eased the towel from his grip. The material fell to the floor with a soft rumpling sound. His erection prodded her belly and she curled her hand loosely around him as he bowed to kiss her.

The florescent lamp above the sink buzzed, its low hum a backdrop for soft breaths and the wet sounds of slow, deepening kisses. His arms eased around her, pulling her against him before his hands slid down to pick her up. 

She was small in stature and hated it most of the time, but she would never, ever tire of being small enough for him to do that. 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist then buried her face in his shoulder. She breathed him in as he carried her to the bed. She kissed him when he crawled onto the mattress and lay her down. She gasped when his fingers found her vulva and caressed. She looked up at him when he slid them inside to massage and stroke and stir her growing slickness. She moved fluidly into his touch, eyes never leaving his, losing herself in the pure eroticism of being finger-fucked by the man she trusted most in the world, while he watched her responses to him. 

They made the sounds of lovers, hums and gasps and moans, panting breaths filling the air between them. He assumed command of her pleasure as she gave the authority to him without question. His index and middle fingers were buried deep in her vaginal canal while the fleshy base of his thumb rocked against her clitoris. 

God, she loved him more than she could have ever imagined, this man who was literally holding her in his hand. This man who was taking her to the brink of orgasm with slow, careful deliberation, both driving and riding her pace until she shattered with a cry. Who buried his cock inside her while her body still convulsed then drowned her in sweltering and loving kisses.

He was deep, so deep, discovering the truth of her, of her need for him, of her joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams, and of the humid glen of pleasure between her thighs. 

She mapped the terrain of his back with her hands, caressing undulating muscles that held strength few guessed resided beneath his Armani suits. He swam and he ran. He had the physique of swimmer and runner. Endurance was a virtue he possessed in abundance, mind and body. It was a blessing as her body regrouped and fell into pace with him again.

She grasped his ass and pulled him back hard to her on each thrust. He shuddered with each meeting of their hips and punctuated each with a flexing roll of his pelvis to hers, grinding against her clit and plowing her deep. 

So fucking deep.

So fucking deep.

So fucking deep.

God, so fucking deep, and hard, and tender. 

She was…

“Come now,” she gasped into him desperately. 

He did and she surrendered with him.


	4. Wasted potential?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walter Skinner was certain of two things in the universe...
> 
> Original Case Fic

Walter Skinner was certain of two things in the universe. 

One: Dana Scully and Fox Mulder would die for one another.

Two: They could be dumped at opposite ends of the world, blindfolded, bound, and gagged, and they’d still find their way back to each other. 

Currently, they had both entered the task force briefing room – what once was the lobby of a shuttered bank building – at opposite sides, heads buried in file folders and wove their way through desks, chairs, tables and other agents, to meet up in the middle without ever looking up.

“Interesting pair.”

Skinner cast a quick glance over at Supervisory Senior Agent Robert Stringfield, the leader of the task force, one of the VCU’s top supervisory agents and a long-time friend from Skinner’s Academy days. He had come to stand beside Skinner and was looking out the office window at the agents and detectives. Clearly, his focus was on Mulder and Scully, which tended to happen. They were something of a curiosity at the Bureau, even for those who didn’t gossip about them in the halls, and when people saw them together, they couldn’t help but watch.

“Yeah,” Skinner agreed, and went back to looking at his agents. 

Mulder’s brow was furrowed as he studied Scully’s folder and his own while she watched him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days –  _which he probably hasn’t_ – while she looked concerned for her partner – _which she is_. She knew what this kind of work did to him.

“How are they doing for you?”

“Spooky’s still Spooky,” Stringfield said gruffly. “But no mentions of little green men or Bigfoot so far.”

Skinner sighed. He wished people would get off that. Yeah, Mulder had a thing for UFOs, alien conspiracies, and monsters, but he also did a lot of other solid work – work that most of his colleagues would think respectable if they stopped and looked.

“But she is wasted down in that basement,” Stringfield continued. “With her medical degree and forensics experience, she could do a hell of a lot of good in my unit.”

Skinner had no doubt that Scully would be an asset to VCU or any other division in the Bureau, but she was immovable from Mulder’s side.

“Would you consider reassigning her to us, Walter?” Stringfield asked.

Skinner let out a scoffing laugh, recalling how she’d responded to that idea a few years ago. “Last time they tried to reassign her, she handed me a resignation letter. I doubt she’d respond any differently now.”

Skinner watched Scully lay a hand on Mulder’s upper arm. From the look on her face, she was probably telling him to take a break, eat, and rest.

 _Good luck with that_ , Skinner mused even though he knew she was the one person Mulder _might_ listen to. He tended to blow off Skinner’s orders on that subject. When she’d been abducted, Mulder had completely disobeyed orders and searched for her himself. When he’d just missed finding her … that had been a dark time.

Skinner hoped the darkness of this case wouldn’t overwhelm his agent, especially watching him shake off Scully now and walk away, back to the room he’d been holing up in. She watched him go, frowning deeply at his retreating back.

“How long have they been partners?” Stringfield asked.

“Seven years,” Skinner replied, watching Scully join a group of other agents looking at the crime scene photographs pinned up to a large bulletin board. It was a wall of horrors. Seeing those images were what prompted him to join the task force.

“Long time,” Stringfield commented. “Any truth to the rumors?”

Skinner bristled at the question. “What rumors are those?” he asked even though he knew _exactly_ what rumors his friend was referring to.

“You can’t tell me you haven’t heard them, Walter, or wondered yourself,” Stringfield said. “Everyone in the Bureau has suspicions that they’re more than partners and have been for years.”

“What I know is that they do their jobs despite the colossal amount of crap they take from their fellow agents,” Skinner said in reply, refusing to participate in a discussion of rumor and innuendo. He never had done that and never would. Especially not about Mulder and Scully.

Skinner watched Scully point out something in one of the photographs then turn and sift through a stack of folders. She pulled one of them out and turned back to the agents. All men. All much taller than her. But they were listening intently to whatever she was explaining. He was glad to see that. Far as he was concerned, sexism needed to be completely rooted out of the workplace. It was counterproductive in a world where men and women were equal under law.

“I’ve heard through the grapevine that the Director is looking to close them down,” Stringfield said. 

Skinner snorted. “When is he not?”

“If they’re successful, think Agent Scully might be interested in a transfer?” Stringfield asked.

 _Only if Mulder joins the fold_ , Skinner thought but said aloud, “You could ask.”

Stringfield sighed beside him. Skinner looked over to see his friend also watching Scully work with her peers.

“Damned shame she’s down there in that basement with Spooky, Walter,” Springfield said shaking his head, “Ridiculous waste of talent.”

“I wouldn’t suggest mentioning that to her,” Skinner said with complete seriousness.

Beside him, Springfield chuckled. “No. She gave a couple of my guys a dressing down yesterday over how they were handling bagged evidence. They’re still stinging.”

Skinner smirked. That sounded like Scully. Perfectly reserved and congenial until you pissed her off. 

Looking back to the window, Skinner saw the group had scattered to different desks and Scully was walking across the room toward the small office Mulder occupied. The door was shut but she was looking through the window at her partner, frowning again.

Skinner could see Mulder standing at the back of the office, staring at a single crime scene photo taped to the wall. His arms were crossed and glasses perched on his nose. He had been removing and replacing images all afternoon. Always only one at a time.

Skinner watched Scully take a deep breath then open the door. She stepped into the office and shut it behind her before approaching her partner, taking up a position beside him and mirroring his posture.

As he watched them, he realized he knew one more certain thing in the universe:

Dana Scully wasn’t wasted on the X-Files; she was exactly where she was supposed to be.


	5. Running Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For nearly a week, he’d been crawling around in the brain of the Langford County Ripper, as the state news channels had labeled the killer, and the shadows had taken over his mind...
> 
> Original case fic

Much of the average FBI agent’s work is research. The rest was good old fashioned police work. An FBI profiler’s job was different. 

A profiler purposely crawled into the head of a killer or killers, examined their crimes looking for motives and signatures, clues to their identities. They had to think like the killer, see the crime from the killer’s point of view. They had, to some degree, become the killer.

Fox Mulder hated profiling but he was good at it and the Bureau knew it. They’d used him for years in the Behavioral Sciences Unit. He’d walked away from that career track after losing himself in the monsters of the human variety too many times. He’d survived with his sanity intact, barely, and been left with a nickname that still haunted him and had taken on a new meaning after he launched the X-Files.

For nearly a week, he’d been crawling around in the brain of the Langford County Ripper, as the state news channels had labeled the killer, and the shadows had taken over his mind. He couldn’t sleep. He could barely eat. His mind was filled with images from the crime scenes before they were crime scenes. He saw a scalpel – he was sure it was a scalpel – slicing through flesh, the welling of blood as the sides of the wound gaped open. He saw the precise severing of connecting tissues and muscle. He saw organs carefully removed from the body cavity. He saw a beating heart in a bowl. He saw a condom and intercourse with a lifeless corpse – a new development in the latest murder. 

He saw things no one else should see. 

He saw what the killer saw as he committed his crime.

He saw the heinous things that human beings were capable of doing to one another. 

And it made him sick.

Mulder ignored the rain that drenched his hair and clothes, that flowed in rivulets down the exposed skin of his face and hands. He ignored the cold and the fact that his shoes and socks were soaked from stepping in puddles along the rural roadside. He ignored the mud and the barking of dogs fenced within yards littered with rusted swing sets and banged-up cars, houses with old tires and white, doorless refrigerators stacked against the side, and garages full of junk that trailed out into gravel driveways.

A killer of this sophistication didn’t start in this community of mostly poor, hard-working, religious people. He was an outsider or relatively new to the area, reigning terror down on the residents for some reason Mulder had yet to fathom. 

What had they done to deserve such displays of horror? Had they pissed him off somehow, insulted his intelligence, bruised his ego? 

The trigger. Mulder needed to know the trigger to find this killer.

Scully and the other agents were working evidentiary angles and on Scully’s suspect theory, trying to give them a pool of persons to work from. Information on individuals with surgical training was coming in from around the country and world. She would narrow the field, he was certain. She would know who stood out as a suspect. Slicing and dicing was her world. But her slicing and dicing was nothing like this killer’s. 

Scully did what she did to serve justice, to find answers, to find the truth. This man did things for pleasure, to show off his superiority to the rest of the world but especially over the people of Whitesville. And now the police.

So much ugliness and horror. 

Mulder ran from it. He needed it out of his head if he was going to get any sleep or keep any food down, both of which Scully kept insisting he needed. He did, but he didn’t know how when all he could see was cut up flesh. All he felt was revulsion at the malignant glee of this killer. He wanted to see something else. He wanted to feel something else.

His legs ached and his lungs burned as he sought blankness and numbness. He needed separation from the grisly if he ever hoped to make love with Scully again.

In the last twenty-four hours, he had started seeing her in the visions sometimes, cut open and displayed, her corpse being violated sexually. He puked in the trash can every time it happened. The last two times, he’d reached for his gun before his gag reflex could fire. He didn’t know if he planned to shoot her assailant or himself.

He’d given her his gun after the second time and told her to hold onto it. He hadn’t explained and she hadn’t asked. He didn’t know if she understood why, but she understood him. No one else did.

He had picked up snippets of conversation here and there, words whispered when he passed or someone passed his office. Spooky .… he hated that nickname, loathed it, but it fit sometimes. 

A flash of Scully’s blue eyes looking at him in concern then clouded in death. 

He ran harder and faster.


	6. Where's Fox?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Has anyone seen Agent Mulder?” Walter Skinner asked as he surveyed the agents and detectives gathered for the afternoon briefing. The room was packed but there was no sign of his agent. 
> 
> Original case fic.

“Has anyone seen Agent Mulder?” Walter Skinner asked as he surveyed the agents and detectives gathered for the afternoon briefing. The room was packed but there was no sign of his agent. 

Correction: agents. Scully wasn’t present either. 

“Or Agent Scully?”

An inappropriate snicker came from somewhere in the back and he scowled in the general direction of the sound. Scully entered the room then and headed straight for him. From the look on her face, it wasn’t good.

“Mulder’s not in his room,” she said, worry saturating her lowered voice, blue eyes projecting it so strongly that it nearly caused him to take a step back. “He went over to shower and catch a nap about two hours ago, but I haven’t seen him since. I can’t find him anywhere in the building and I’ve checked the police and sheriff offices. His badge and wallet are in the room, as is his cell phone.”

“His gun?” Skinner asked. 

She shook her head. “I have it.”

Skinner wondered why. He could probably guess but didn’t ask. She probably wouldn’t tell him anyway.

“Any of our vehicles missing?”

“All vehicles for the Bureau, and local police and sheriff are accounted for,” she said and he believed her. She was a thorough investigator in her own right, which means she’d been looking for him for a while. 

“Anywhere else you think he might be?” Skinner asked, his head starting to hurt.

Her gaze darted to the window. “My best guess is he’s gone for a run.”

Skinner’s frown deepened. “In this weather?”

“It helps him think,” she explained, continuing, “I’ve asked the dispatchers to put out a bulletin to radio in if they see him and to tell him he’s needed back. But, sir, he’s exhausted and hasn’t eaten or slept much in days. I’m concerned about the effects of that level of exertion in his condition.”

 _Not to mention we have a killer on the lose in the area who might just decide to target an unarmed FBI agent, just to taunt authorities,_ Skinner added silently, not wanting to worry Scully any more than she already was. Of course, she may have thought of it already.

“I’d like to request permission to take a sedan and search for him myself,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” he said with a glance over at Robert Stringfield. 

“I’ve got it,” Stringfield said but before Skinner and Scully could leave, a junior agent burst into the room. 

“Agent Mulder’s collapsed outside his room!”

Scully was moving before the man could even finished the sentence.


	7. Dammit, Mulder!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heart racing, Scully bolted from the old bank building to the motel just a block down, infinitely glad that she’d worn boots again...
> 
> Original case fic.

Heart racing, Scully bolted from the old bank building to the motel just a block down, infinitely glad that she’d worn boots again. 

She ignored the pouring rain and shouts of other agents and made a beeline toward Mulder’s room. She tried to ignore her fears. She should have stayed with him, made sure he ate and slept. Made sure he rested. But she hadn’t. She’d gone back to work and now he was out cold, facedown on the parking lot pavement, just feet from his room door.

_Dammit, Dana, you should have listened to your instincts,_ she scolded herself before shoving away any guilt and focusing on the problem at hand. Still memories of what happened to him last fall were assailing her.

“Out of the way,” Scully shouted to the agents clustered around Mulder’s collapsed form.

“He’s breathing,” one agent said as the others retreated a few feet away. She absorbed the information and knelt quickly by Mulder’s side. She felt for his pulse at his throat – steady but faster than it should be for someone unconscious. Her eyes scanned down his body for any sign of serious injury – none obvious, no blood, but he was drenched head to toe, his calves, socks, and shoes splashed with mud. She looked back to his face and laid a hand on his forehead. His skin was ice cold. Possibly hypothermia, or bordering it.

“Get him up and into the room,” she ordered and moved ahead of the other agents, snagging Mulder’s key up from the ground. She shoved her soaked hair back behind her ears on he way to the bathroom. She turned the tub faucet all the way over to hot. When she came back out, the men were just laying Mulder down on the bed, Skinner supporting his head. 

“Do I need to call an ambulance?” he asked as he and the other agents moved out of her way.

“Yes,” she said tersely, annoyed that he would ask. It seemed obvious that if Mulder wasn’t waking up with them manhandling him, he needed more care than could be provided in a ratty motel room.

She reached for Mulder’s shoes and yanked them off along with his socks. She fisted the material of his t-shirt in both hands and yanked him upright. He started to drop back immediately, dead weight. 

_Dead. Don’t use that word, Dana. He’s not dead. He’s unconscious. He’s a huge unconscious idiot who had no business running in this weather._

“Mulder,” she said sternly as she pulled again, hoping to rouse him with the sound of her voice. He didn’t respond. 

“Somebody help me,” she snapped when he started falling back again. He was too damned heavy for her to maneuver in this position. Not while he was unconscious.

Skinner was there in a flash but grasping Mulder’s arms, a positively useless position.

“From behind,” she barked. “Prop him up. I’ve got to get these wet clothes off him.”

Skinner did as request and with his help, she stripped Mulder’s blue Knicks t-shirt up and off, trying not to think of the other times she’d done so, for entirely different reasons.

His whole body twitched and she looked up at his face. His eyes were still closed, expression flat. 

_Still unconscious._

“Mulder, I need you to wake up,” she scolded. “It’s Scully. Wake up.”

Still no response. She slapped his cheek lightly, then a bit harder. Still nothing.

_Shit._

“Lay him back,” she told Skinner then moved up beside her partner and bent over him as Skinner moved away. She checked Mulder’s pulse again, checked his pupils, then did a sternal rub. He responded, eyelids fluttering.

_Thank God._

“Dammit, Mulder, wake up,” she repeated firmly. “It’s Scully. I need you to wake up.”

He mumbled something. She made out what she thought might be her name.

She glanced over her shoulder at Skinner. “Check the water temperature. I need it warm but not too hot. Plug the drain.”

“Somebody get some coffee or hot tea,” she said to the other men gathered near the door. If he woke up before the ambulance arrived, she needed to get something warm in him right away.

She turned then and reached for the waistband off Mulder’s shorts. She quickly worked them down from his hips and off his legs. She left his underwear on for modesty’s sake. As much modesty as could be had considering the material was plastered to his rather generous endowment.

“Sir,” she called out.

“It’s ready,” he answered.

“Help me get him up,” she said, rising.

Two men came forward and lifted Mulder and dragged him to the bathroom, his head lolling side to side. Skinner vacated the small room and let the men pass with Mulder. 

Scully followed them, stripping off her jacket and tossing it onto the other bed in the room. She set hers and Mulder’s guns on the nightstand as she passed it.

“Ease him down,” she told the agents. “Careful of his head.”

The minute his feet hit the water, he jolted awake and started fighting the men.

“Get your hands off me,” he croaked.

“Mulder,” she said, “Relax.”

“Scully!” he called out and tried to turn his head to look at her.

She reached for his hand, the one that had a death grip on the shirt of one of the other agents.

“I’m here, Mulder,” she said calmly, touching him. “You need to let them help you down into the tub. You’re borderline hypothermic and we need to get your body temperature up.”

At that, he relaxed, or, more like, he sagged in the arms of the other agents. The two men grunted as they eased him down into the water. As one of them left the room, she stepped in and knelt by the tub, finding herself thankful for the small basin that she’d groused silently about a several nights ago. With his long legs, it would help him stay sitting upright even if he passed out again.

“You awake still?” she asked, softening her tone from what it had been from the start.

“Yeah,” he said as she reached to brush his wet hair back from his brow.

“Try to stay that way,” she said, giving him a little smile. She turned then and reached for the washcloth hanging on the rack by the door. She ducked it into the water stream from the faucet; it was just the hot side of warm. She began wiping his body down, dragging the hot water across his chest. “What possessed you to go for a run in this weather? You were supposed to sleep.”

“Couldn’t get him out of my head,” he mumbled and she looked up to see his head tip forward.

“Mulder,” she said, softly, then repeated it louder and he jerked his head back and hit it against the tile. Not hard, but enough to make her wince and worry. She released the cloth and raised on her knees to check his head for injury – besides the scrape on his right cheek.

Nothing palpable but she would order a head x-ray just in case.

“I’m okay, Scully,” he said as she ran her fingers over his scalp.

“Why don’t you let the doctor in this partnership make that determination?” she said then touched his cheek – he felt a little warmer. She ducked to catch his gaze as his head tilted again.

“Look at me,” she said. 

He did, his hazel eyes clearly unfocused.

“I don’t feel so good, Scully,” he said then convulsed.

“Mulder!” she shouted, panic flooding her as she watched him pass out again after his body expelled the contents of his stomach, remnants of the coffee he’d been guzzling for days. His body went lax in the tub, his torso held up only by virtue of him being so damned tall, as she’d predicted. She reached for his head again, touched his brow before pulling him toward her to keep him from aspirating. He was burning up.

“Where’s that ambulance?!” she called out as she reached for the faucet and shut off the water.

She heard Skinner shout an order to get an ETA then he was kneeling beside her. She saw him grimace as he looked at the tub then at Mulder.

“What’s happening?” her boss asked.

“He’s spiked a fever,” she said urgently. “I need to get him to a hospital _now_.”


	8. Dr. Scully digs in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, sir,” she ground out, “You can give me orders as an FBI agent, but not as Agent Mulder’s doctor and medical proxy."
> 
> Official case fic

Raised voices greeted Walter Skinner the moment he exited the elevator on the ICU floor.

Dana Scully’s to be specific, and a man’s whose voice became recognizable as he grew closer. Robert Stringfield. 

_Shit._

Skinner picked up his pace and rounded the corner to see the short redhead standing off with his friend and her superior. She was dug in, too, based on her posture and the set of her jaw. She was staring straight up at the man, not cowed at all by his height, blue eyes blazing as she laid down the law, literally, as Stringfield threatened to bring her up on charges of insubordination. 

“No, sir,” she ground out, “You can give me orders as an FBI agent, but not as Agent Mulder’s doctor and medical proxy. He is not leaving this hospital without my approval and he sure as hell isn’t rejoining this case without it.”

“What’s the problem here?” Skinner asked as he grew nearer, keeping his tone stern and administrative. 

“Can she do this?” Stringfield asked him, scowling.

Skinner glanced at Scully who had all the confidence in the world at her position. Not for the first time, he wondered how much of that steel in her spine came from her upbringing or if it came from her medical training. It had clearly been tempered in her years working with Mulder. 

“Yes,” he confirmed then looked directly at Scully. “How is he?”

“He’s on the verge of pneumonia,” she said. “He needs fluids, rest, and nutrition, and he can’t get that out in the field and certainly not on this case.”

Her blue eyes were beseeching him to back her up, to help her protect her partner. Although she hadn’t directly addressed her concerns until earlier in the day, he’d been paying attention to Mulder’s rapid deterioration, physically, and his descent into the mind of the killer they were chasing. In a matter of days, his agent had begun shedding weight, developed dark circles under his eyes, and drifted into staring stupors that only Scully could rouse him from. He’d never actually witnessed Mulder do this kind of work up close. It was disturbing and he could only imagine how unsettling it was for Mulder himself, and Scully. They always felt each other’s pain keenly.

“Has he regained consciousness?” Skinner asked.

“He’s in and out,” Scully said and the way she cocked her jaw, he knew there was more that she wouldn’t say in front of Stringfield, and perhaps wouldn’t even enlighten Skinner. And, as a doctor, she wasn’t required to under HIPPA law. That medical shield came with a lot of power.

He turned to Stringfield. “Can I talk to you?”

Stringfield gave Scully a stern look and wandered down the hall.

“Sir…” Scully began but he cut her off. 

“I’ll handle it,” he said.

She nodded and he watched her duck back through the doors to the ICU before he moved down the hall to catch up with his friend.

“Do you let her get away with that? I thought Spooky was a handful but turns out, she’s worse than he is,” Stringfield said, which Skinner found ironic considering just a couple days ago, his friend had been looking to recruit Scully for his unit.

“She’s not worse. She’s just standing in a position of authority that neither of us has the right by law to override,” Skinner said. “And she’s not wrong. Mulder isn’t going to get better by diving back into that dark hole we’ve asked him to crawl into. You’ve seen what this case has done to him so far. Look where he’s laying, Robert.”

Stringfield frowned and looked back toward the ICU. “All our case is locked away in his head.”

“No, it’s not. He makes detailed notes,” Skinner countered.

“You mean pages of scribblings and drawings that no one can decipher,” Stringfield replied, looking back to him. “We need him to do that if nothing else.”

“Ask Scully to do it,” Skinner said. “She may not think like Mulder but she knows how he thinks. If anyone can make heads or tails of Mulder’s notes, it’s her.”

Stringfield scowled. “You think we’ll be able to pry her away from his bedside?” 

Skinner wasn’t sure they could. When Scully dug in…

“Bring the notes to her,” he said. “She’ll look at them if we leave Mulder out of it. And if she feels he’s up to it, she’ll request his help.”

Stringfield ran his hand over his head and his gaze grew pained. “We’ve got to catch this guy, Walter, before he hits again.”

Skinner gave him a sympathetic look. “I know. So does Scully, but sacrificing Mulder’s health  isn’t an option. He’s one of our own even if more than half the Bureau thinks he’s a joke.”

Skinner watched his friend take a deep breath then let it out slowly, his shoulders relaxing as he did. 

“You going back to see him?” he asked Skinner.

“Yeah.”

“Smooth things over with her?” Stringfield asked.

Skinner smirked. “Yeah.”

Stringfield nodded and started toward the elevator. 

“You know, Walter,” he said, stepping into the car. “It’s no wonder there are rumors. After what the agents witnessed today, they’re going to continue.”

Skinner scowled and watched the doors close.


	9. Guardian and Touchstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And what do you want me to do with these exactly?” she asked, looking up at Stringfield.

Dana Scully looked at the notebook that SSA Robert Stringfield had just handed her. They were Mulder’s notes on the case, random scribblings and sketches, a hodgepodge of his thoughts.

The sketches were startling, scalpels and portions of torsos, a human heart, the symbols from the walls. He’d told her a few days ago that the latter were nonsensical when put together and were otherwise random, no common theme, but he thought they were significant in some way to the killer, he just hadn’t figured out why and was concerned that it might not be understood until the man was apprehended.

“And what do you want me to do with these exactly?” she asked, looking up at Stringfield. He was shorter than Mulder or A.D. Skinner but still taller than her. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, wearing a gray suit and maroon tie, he was about ten pounds heavier than he probably should be. _Not uncommon for agents who didn’t go out into the field often._ She knew he was a friend of Skinner’s from the Academy.

“Translate them if possible, help us make sense of them so we can push the investigation forward,” he said, adding, “since your partner is incapacitated.”

She raised an eyebrow. That had been the last thing she expected. She’d thought he would push her, or at least ask her to show them to Mulder and get his head back into the game. She suspected this compromise was Skinner’s suggestion.

“I’ll do what I can,” she said then closed up the notebook, feeling contrite in that moment. “I wanted to apologize for earlier, SSA Stringfield. My intention was not to challenge your authority or to hamper the investigation.”

“You’re protecting your patient, which I can respect,” Stringfield said.

She noted he didn’t say partner. She was glad. Protecting Mulder in that capacity was a fine line within the Bureau. She had danced it before and even stepped over it a few times and Mulder had done the same. Only their ironclad solidarity had protected them from the fallout of planned obfuscations and outright lies in the moment.

“Yes,” she said but didn’t explain that Mulder had a history of not taking care of his himself on cases like these, and others.

“We’re also starting to receive responses to our bulletin to Field Offices, looking for murders that are even remotely similar. I’d like you to review the autopsy photos that are provided to see if you can find any possible connection…” he trailed off.

“Of course, sir,” she said. “As an FBI agent, I am sworn to do whatever I can to help the investigation. But as Agent Mulder’s doctor, I am sworn to not compromise his health, even for the sake of the case.”

She held the SAS’s gaze as he assessed her. She didn’t think him a threat but she sure as hell wasn’t going to offer him any openings to test her commitment to either role she played, especially the latter.

“Dr. Scully?”

Dana looked over her shoulder to see a clearly distressed nurse.

“What is it?” she asked, immediately concerned.

“Agent Mulder is awake and combative,” the woman said. 

Dana didn’t wait to hear more. She spun on her heel, followed the nurse through the doors to the ICU, and stalked toward Mulder’s bay. She could hear him calling for her, continually, his voice rising with each shout of her name.

“Where is she?! Scully!”

Worry spiking, Dana moved faster, quickly closing the distance. She stepped past the nurses in the doorway to see Mulder in the corner of the room, his back to the wall and holding a chair between him and a pair of orderlies. His eyes were wild as he looked back and forth between the two men.

She was suddenly hit with a memory from months ago, of him locked in a padded cell and screaming as dormant parts of his brain came stunningly alive, so swiftly and thoroughly that it had almost killed him. With sheer force of will, she shoved the recollection aside. She needed to be here, now, for him, and silently thanked God that no one could deny her access this time.

“Mulder,” she said his name clear and firm. He startled and looked at her wide-eyed, as if he was shocked to see her.

“Scully?” he said, his volume lowering and his arms starting to shake. The chair sagged in his hands. 

Heart in her throat, she moved toward him, gently nodding to the orderlies, letting them know it was okay to back away. The charge nurse expressed her concerns, though.

“Dr. Scully, we need to sedate him first,” the woman said.

“Let me handle it,” Dana said with a shake of her head and moved forward with absolute confidence, focusing all her attention on her distressed partner. 

“Mulder, put the chair down,” she told him and he did so.

His whole body began to shake when he did and his eyes remained filled with disbelief. She had the distinct feeling he thought something had happened to her and his next words confirmed it.

“He cut you up,” he mumbled.

Dana gently pushed the chair aside so she could reach him.

He repeated, “Scully?”

_God, the fear and hope in his voice… Oh, Mulder…_

“I’m here,” she said. 

“He cut you up, Scully,” he repeated again with a shake of his head, his voice hoarse and strained with grief.

The sight of tears gathering in his hazel eyes made her heart ache. She hated how these cases took over his beautiful mind, how fragile they made him.

“No, Mulder,” she said, shaking her head as her world narrowed down to him, her partner, her lover, her touchstone and companion. “I’m right here.”

She held her hand out to him and he took it after a moment’s hesitation. His grip tightened hard after initial contact as if reassuring himself she was real. “I’m here,” she repeated, returning his grip just as solidly. After a moment, he slouched heavily against the wall then slowly slid to the floor, his legs no longer able to hold him up.

Dana followed him down to kneel between his bent knees. She glanced down to see his patient gown had ridden up and his groin was exposed. She grabbed the hem and tugged it down to cover him as best as possible, whispering, “It’s okay, Mulder. I’m not hurt.”

His eyes looked her over with a strange combination of wonder and worry. He released her hand and reached for the buttons of her blouse.

“Let me see,” he said, his attention falling to his trembling fingers as they undid the first button. 

“Mulder, we’re not alone,” she breathed softly, flushing but not in arousal.

He glanced up at her. “I need to see, Scully. He cut you up.”

Hope and fright, another strange mixture of emotions, radiated off him and she knew it wasn’t going to dissipate unless she let him do what he needed. She wondered if she would allow him that were they not lovers but she didn’t dwell on the matter. Instead, she sought to protect him and them, turning her head to the side and speaking to the others present. 

“I need the room,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument. She waited until the last person shuffled out and the door shut before looking back at her partner. 

“Okay, Mulder.”

He didn’t hesitate. His unsteady fingers moved with surprising speed from button to button then parted the material to see her chest. He laid a hand on her throat then traced his fingertips from beneath her chin down along her sternum until he reached her bra. His eyes followed the same path then looked up at her in relief.

“Scully,” he said, recognition saturating his raspy baritone before grief overtook him. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders as he curled toward her, his head coming to rest against her chest.

“It’s me,” she whispered to him as his hands grasped at her back.

“I saw him cut you up, Scully,” he sobbed quietly into the valley between her breasts.

“It was just a bad dream, Mulder,” she said, kissing the top of his head and threading the fingers of her right hand into his hair. “I’m not hurt. I’m here.”

Her own voice tightened with emotion as she continued consoling him with soft words and touches. She had no idea for how long, but enough time passed for him to regain some control and for her knees to start complaining about the cold, hard floor beneath them. She eased her hold on him when he began leaning back from her.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, cradling his face in her hands as he rested against the wall. 

“My balls are cold,” he said with a fleeting smirk.

She smiled at him, exceedingly glad to hear him make a joke.

“I don’t doubt it,” she said, glancing down to see that his gown had ridden up again. “Let’s get you back in bed before any of the nurses get ideas.”

“Would that make you jealous, Scully?” he asked as she stood. 

By way of answer, she quirked an eyebrow and held a hand out to him. He grabbed it and used her and the wall to leverage himself up. He swayed once he was on his feet and she quickly ducked under his arm to offer him what support her smaller frame could provide. He made it back to the bed with her help and sat on the edge before reaching and beginning to re-button her blouse. He frowned and let his hands fall away after finishing the first couple.

“I’m sorry,” he said and she looked down to see fresh blood staining the fabric.

She quickly reached for his hand and saw blood trickling from where he’d ripped out the IVs. She didn’t know how she’d missed it before.

“It’s okay. It’ll wash out,” she assured him and quickly finished buttoning her shirt.

Once presentable, she pilfered the nearby supply cart for a gauze pad then snatched a pair of gloves from the dispenser on the wall. She ripped open the sterile packaging then snapped on the latex, as he’d once put it.

“Let me see your hand again,” she said softly as she picked up the gauze.

He held his hand out to her, palm down. She frowned as she blotted away the blood to get a look at the wound. There was a tear in the skin above where the needle had clearly been ripped out. “We’ll need to put the new IVs on your left.”

“I’m dizzy,” he said and she looked up at him. His eyes were drooping and he was starting to sway, making her worry that he might collapse again.

“Okay, time to lay down,” she said, holding pressure on the gauze and shifting so he could pivot and swing his legs up into the bed.

He did so, with more effort than she would have thought considering the adrenaline surge of minutes ago. That it was fading so fast told her exactly how exhausted he was, not that she’d needed more evidence.

“Hold this,” she gently instructed, reaching for his left hand and placing it atop the right to hold the gauze in place. She then rearranged his gown for modesty’s sake and pulled the covers up over him. 

She paused a moment and smoothed her hand across his brow. He shut his eyes at her touch. The soft sigh he emitted made her smile in spite of finding his skin clammy.

“I’ll be right back,” she told him softly. “Just keep holding that gauze in place.”

He nodded then stopped her with a soft utterance of her name before she drifted fully away. 

“I don’t want to dream,” he told her, a silent plea in his eyes.

From what he said he’d seen in his dreams, she didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t want to dream those things either.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she assured him, not at all sure she could give him completely dreamless sleep but would consult with his on-call attending for options.

He nodded then closed his eyes with a heavy sigh.

She stepped out into the hall.


	10. On the Outside Looking In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her blouse, which had been snow white before, had fresh blood stains...

SSA Robert Stringfield watched the petite Agent Scully emerge from the ICU room and became immediately concerned.

Her blouse, which had been snow white before, had fresh blood stains. There’d been no indication of violence taking place in the room after he and the others left and she’d been confident her partner wouldn’t hurt her but seeing…

“Agent Scully?” he said, gesturing as benignly as possible to the red splotches on her shirt with a little lift of his chin. She didn’t glance down.

“He ripped out his IVs,” she explained then asked him to excuse her. “I need to speak to the charge nurse first.”

Not wanting to interfere, Stringfield let her do that while he took up station by the door to Agent Mulder’s ICU bay. He watched her talk to a middle-aged blond wearing scrubs and caught snippets of their conversation.

“I need to bandage his right hand and start new IVs on the left,” Scully said to the woman. “Can you set me up for that right away?”

“Yes, Dr. Scully, but we can take care of that for you,” the nurse replied.

Stringfield watched Scully dismiss the offer with a wisp of a smile and little shake of her head. 

“It’ll be better if I take care of it this time,” she said and the nurse smiled back. Scully continued, “I need to speak to the on-call attending as soon as possible.”

“Dr. Stafford is on duty tonight. I’ll page him,” the nurse said then began fulfilling Agent Scully’s directions without delay. 

Stringfield was impressed. For a small county hospital, they were on the ball. Or maybe it was because of Agent Scully. Her demeanor was every bit that of a doctor at the moment, and had been since they’d found Agent Mulder passed out in the parking lot of the motel. She was direct without being rude and spoke in a way that indicated any challenge of her authority would not be tolerated.

As Scully rejoined Stringfield, her hand rose and tucked an errant lock of red hair behind her ear. She looked tired.

“What was all that about?” he asked when she reached him. He watched irritation briefly appear on her fine features before they slipped into a completely unreadable mask. He blinked, wondering for a moment if he’d seen the irritation at all.

“When he profiles, he sees things from the killer’s point of view. His dreams can seem all-too real,” she explained, crossing her arms over her chest, partially concealing the blood stains on the stark white fabric of her shirt.

Stringfield frowned, his mind replaying the events of minutes ago, how Agent Mulder had been panicked and enraged only to go stock still when she’d said his name. He’d looked at her like she was a ghost and said…

“He thought you’d been murdered by the killer?”

“Yes,” she sighed and raised a hand to rub her brow only to lower it moments later when the nurse came out of Mulder’s room and announced that he was asking for her. 

Agent Scully thanked the nurse then looked up at him.

“I need to take care of his hand,” she said and didn’t wait to be dismissed before turning and entering the room. Stringfield caught a glimpse of her partner laying in the bed before the door shut behind her.

A moment later, Stringfield realized he was still holding Agent Mulder’s notebook in his hand. Annoyed with himself, he debated whether or not to enter the room and give the notebook to her. He should but he thought it might not be a good idea considering what she’d told him about her partner’s dreams.

Spooky Mulder was a legend around the BSU for his profiling abilities. Most people didn’t know, or bothered to know, that his skills in that area were what had landed him the nickname and not the fringe stuff he investigated these days. 

Stringfield knew because he’d been a field agent in St. Louis when Mulder became the golden boy of Bill Patterson, the Bureau’s chief profiler at the time. Rumor had it Patterson used up his protege and tossed him to the curb. Mulder had landed in Violent Crimes for a while before doing a pretty damned good impression of a phoenix by turning his pet interests, a bunch of unexplained cases filed in the Hoover building basement, into a Bureau division.

Whatever people’s impressions of the X-Files and Mulder himself, that the man was able to carve out that niche all by himself was impressive. It was too bad that accomplishment was overlooked. It was too bad Patterson had treated him like shit. The man clearly had a gift but it apparently came at a high cost, higher than Stringfield had realized.

It was no wonder Agent Scully had positioned herself firmly between her partner and the FBI. As a doctor, she could do that, making him wonder if Mulder realized what an asset that was, and how much she had legitimized his work over the years. 

 _Of course, he does. The man’s not stupid. But he had been half out of his damned mind until she stepped into that room and got his attention,_ Stringfield acknowledged.

Moving over by the door, Stringfield leaned against the wall and contemplated the whole of what he’d seen, from the moment he’d followed Agent Scully into the room to the moment she’d asked them to leave. No, she’d _told_ them to leave, commanding the room and its occupants with the ease of a four-star general. Every one of them had obeyed immediately, including himself.

Considering the glimpse he’d gotten of Mulder through the door just now, once again in the bed, lying still and docile as a lamb, Stringfield wondered what had happened in those minutes they’d been alone. He doubted she’d commanded her partner to get a grip, although she was probably capable of it when warranted. 

Those first few moments when she’d knelt in front of Mulder had drastically deescalated the tension in the room and in the man himself. He’d slid down the wall after taking her hand, clearly reassured by her presence, which made complete sense if he’d thought something had happened to her and he believed he’d _witnessed_ it.

Stringfield often had nightmares when he worked cases, especially anything involving kids, so he could sympathize with Mulder on that front. He had no frame of reference for Scully, though. She was every bit what people said she was:

Highly intelligent, analytical, professional, practical. A seasoned investigator, forensic scientist, and medical doctor. Reserved and strictly disciplined, which sat in direct counter to her partner’s well known flights of fantasy and flaunting of Bureau policies.

The Ice Queen. He’d heard that moniker bandied about a time or two in regards to Agent Scully and she definitely was cool under pressure but she was also fiercely passionate and a force of nature when on a tear. 

Mrs. Spooky was another nickname that had been assigned her over the years, no doubt fueled by their isolation in the Hoover basement and the closeness between the partners, physically and otherwise. 

He’d noticed that they left little to no personal space between them when conversing but conceded that their height difference might account for that. They causally touched each other, too, but not frequently enough to draw attention on its own. She watched him closely, but considering how long they’d been partnered, what Mulder been doing, his current predicament, and her medical background, it was completely understandable. 

Ironically, none of those observations singularly or cumulatively was evidence that their relationship as anything unprofessional – even to someone used to evaluating evidence and human behavior. At best it was circumstantial, but not enough that any lawyer would take it to court. It was, however, enough to supply the rumor mill with grist, especially when factored in with the almost symbiotic way they worked together. They often finished one another’s sentences and shared looks that spoke in volumes, not sentences.

Stringfield had told Skinner that the gossip would only be fueled further by what her peers had witnessed that afternoon and they had been. He’d overheard several agents at the task force HQ talking about how Agent Scully handled the situation, how “familiar” she’d been with undressing Agent Mulder.

Hearing it had pissed Stringfield off. He’d quickly let them know where he stood and where they stood, too. He reminded them that Agent Scully was a trained medical doctor and responding to an emergency situation, and that she was their colleague and deserving of their respect. They’d shut up but he knew it wouldn’t stop them talking because the Bureau, despite its high ideals, was like every other workplace when it came to gossip.

Hearing approaching footsteps, Stringfield glanced to see a tall, African American man coming down the hall. He wore a doctor’s coat and had his stethoscope sticking out of one of the lower pockets. The embroidery on the left chest read: Dr. Eugene Stafford.

The man flashed him a polite smile, which Stringfield returned with a nod, then ducked into Agent Mulder’s room. 


	11. Handled with Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fox Mulder watched his partner carefully bandage his hand. Her touch was gentle but skilled and remained so when she moved to the other side of the bed and prepped to reconnect the IVs. Not that he expected otherwise.

Fox Mulder watched his partner carefully bandage his hand. Her touch was gentle but skilled and remained so when she moved to the other side of the bed and prepped to reconnect the IVs. Not that he expected otherwise.

He shut his eyes as she continued to take care of him, ignoring the slight sting of the needle piercing his skin in favor of concentrating on her presence and the calm that came with it. It blanketed his mind like snow falling on a quiet, winter morning, cooling the fevered thoughts that had been raging through his gray matter for days, waking and sleeping.

The imagery from earlier brushed his mind, her body dissected and displayed in the bed of his hotel room, witnessing the horrors, unable to move from where he stood, just inside the door of the room. It was the last thing he remembered seeing before waking up in this room.

Mulder flinched and immediately felt her fingers curl around his and squeeze gently

“What is it?” came her voice, so softly, as if afraid she might startle him. 

He forced his eyes open to see her concerned ones on him already. He gave a little shake of his head, knowing she’d understand that he didn’t want to say, and that she already knew.

“How long have you been seeing that?”

“A couple days,” he said.

She squeezed his fingers again then reached for the strips of tape she’d already prepped to secure the IV port. She pulled one off the edge of the table then placed it precisely over the device to keep it in place. 

When she reached for the second piece the room door opened. He didn’t look up, content to watch her take care of him. He heard a doctor introduce himself then watched her gaze fix on the doorway for a moment before she began talking to the doctor, briefing him on what had happened and then asking about something to help Mulder sleep without dreaming.

“Short of sedation, which isn’t advisable right now unless absolutely necessary, I’d recommend clonazepam,” the doctor said then looked at Mulder. “It won’t entirely suppress dreams but it will affect the brain chemistry associated with REM sleep.”

Mulder had taken that drug before, after his stint in BSU under Patterson. He recalled it dulling him somewhat, made his dreams less vivid.

“I’ll take it, doc,” he said and watched Scully look at him with a slightly raised eyebrow. He explained his previous experience with the drug.

“I’ll write up the order,” the tall doctor said then asked if Scully needed anything else. 

“No, I can take things from here,” she said. 

“Excellent,” the man smiled at her and Mulder. “I’ll be back for rounds at 7,” he said before slipping out of the room as quietly as he’d entered.

Mulder looked up at Scully. “You staying?”

“I need to go to the hotel for a shower and to change clothes,” she said, “I will probably grab a bite to eat but I’ll be back before rounds.”

Anxiety bit at his heels at the thought of her leaving but anxiety was soon replaced by guilt. He was being selfish. She looked nearly as exhausted as he felt.

“You need sleep, Scully,” he observed as she began hooking up the two IVs to the ports, one for fluids, the other for something she’d called parenteral nutrition.

A ghost of a smile settled on her mouth when she looked at him. “I can sleep anywhere. Or have you forgotten?”

He found a smile for her, too, but he didn’t have the energy to hold it and she knew it.

“I remember,” he said and watched her clean up the tray that held the packaging for the supplies she’d used to care for him. She stripped off the latex gloves and tossed them into the biohazard bin.

“Do you think you could eat something?” she asked, when she returned to sit on the edge of the bed, next to his hip. She took his hand in hers.

The thought of moving his arms to raise and lower a spoon or lift a sandwich to his mouth sounded exhausting. Hell, keeping his eyes open was exhausting.

“Not now,” he said.

She let his hand rest on her thigh before reaching up and touching his cheek, then gently raking her fingers through his hair.

“Next time you’re awake, though,” she said, looking at him intently. “The IV is meant for only so long.”

“Bring me a burger and fries?” he asked. 

She smiled that indulgent smile she gave him only in private.

“It wouldn’t be my first recommendation as your doctor but if that’s what you’ll eat…”

“I’ll eat it,” he said.

“Tea?” she asked.

“Only if you love me,” he said.

He watched her glance toward the doorway, which he couldn’t see with her blocking his view.

“What?” he asked when she looked back to him.

“SSA Stringfield is in the hall,” she said softly. 

“Skinner?”

“Getting some sleep, hopefully,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Why’s Stringfield here then?” he asked, frowning. He could guess why, especially if Skinner wasn’t, but he didn’t want to.

She shook her head, said softly, “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” he countered, moving his hand right hand up to touch her arm. He gently squeezed her bicep.

“He was bringing me some information on the case to review,” she responded but when she licked her bottom lip, he knew it wasn’t the whole of it. There was more she wasn’t saying and this time he did guess at it.

“But not autopsy reports,” he said and she sighed.

She brushed the backs of her fingers along his jaw. 

“I’ll bring your shaving kit,” she said and this time he sighed. 

“Come clean, Scully,” he encouraged.

Her eyes met his and he saw her weighing whether or not to tell him.

“Your notebook,” she said after several long moments.

A brick took up residence in his gut. 

“You shouldn’t look at that,” he said, really wishing she wouldn’t. It was full of the evil things that were running around in his mind.

“You can’t completely protect me from it, Mulder. I know what you do,” she said softly. “And I know what it does to you.”

“I’ll help you with it,” he said, wanting to take that burden from her, not wanting her to descend into the darkness with him. Not this way and not on this case.

“You’re getting at least 48 hours of sleep before you help anyone with anything,” she said with a note of warning. 

He opened his mouth to respond but she spoke before he could. 

“Please don’t fight me on this, Mulder,” she said, her voice soft again, pleading. “You have got to rest. I need you to rest so that I can,” she continued than eyed him intently, confessing, “You scared the hell out of me today.”

The look in her eyes, the intimacy of her proximity and her voice would have been enough to secure his surrender, even if he weren’t so tired. At least he hoped he would care about her enough to feel guilt and do what was best for both of them. He did not calculate the odds, though. Instead, he gave her a little nod and watched relief fall over her. Then he sought to secure a concession from her, in light of his dreams.

“Promise me you won’t go anywhere alone,” he said, squeezing her thigh as he slid his other hand up to her shoulder then down along her back.

She didn’t look toward the door this time and he thought for a moment she might balk, having seen a little flare of indignation rise, but she didn’t. Instead, she laid her hand on his chest and whispered softly, “I won’t."


	12. Running on Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This kind of case tries the soul,” he’d said and she’d agreed with a simple “yes.”

A weary Dana Scully dropped her keys and Mulder’s notebook on the table just inside her motel room. She needed to sleep for a week but she had other things to do first, namely taking a hot shower. 

Shutting and locking the door behind her, she made her way over to her suitcase and extracted a fresh pair of pajamas and laid them out on the bed. From the closet, she pulled the suit she’d had dry-cleaned the day before and draped it over the chair at the table, preparing for the morning. 

As she stripped down, she estimated she might get in a few hours of sleep before returning to the hospital. She had stayed awake on the drive back to the motel despite being the passenger. If Mulder had been driving, she would have indulged in a power nap but with SSA Stringfield behind the wheel, she hadn’t been able to relax enough. Thankfully, the senior agent hadn’t wanted to talk the entire drive. 

Buckling up, she’d told him she’d look at the notebook and pick up any files ready for review in the morning before going back to check on Mulder. His reply had been one of cordial empathy for Mulder.

“This kind of case tries the soul,” he’d said and she’d agreed with a simple “yes.”

Silence had accompanied them the rest of the way to the motel and she’d been grateful. She really hadn’t wanted to discuss the case or Mulder, or anything else for that matter. She needed time alone, to think and then purge her thoughts so she could sleep. 

God, she hoped she could sleep. She prayed Mulder would, too, that the clonazepam would dampen his dreams at least, letting him genuinely rest in what had probably been days. Just in case, though, she made sure the shift charge nurse had her cellphone and room phone number and advised her to call if anything happened at all.

Stuffing her just-shed bra and panties into her laundry bag and setting aside her blouse and suit for dry-cleaning, she made her way to the bathroom, taking her cellphone with her, just in case. 

The water was hot and soothing, easing some of the tightness in her neck and back. If Mulder were here, she’d entreat him to put his large hands to work on the remainder of the tension. She wished he were with her in ways that she was afraid to contemplate. 

They had both been busy since the Bureau officially took over the case, setting up a temporary headquarters in the empty bank building down the street. It wasn’t so empty anymore. Folding tables and chairs had been set up. Cork boards and chalk boards had been brought in. The only room with a sink other than the bathrooms had been stocked with a coffeemaker, cups, and cans of the cheapest grind available, along with a small refrigerator and microwave.

SSA Stringfield and Assistant Director Skinner had set up shop in what once was the branch manager’s office while Mulder had taken over one of the smaller ones with a glass door and window.

People had been watching her partner throughout the week, sometimes stopping to just stare at him while he contemplated horrific crime scene photo after horrific crime scene photo. They gawked as he drew the mysterious symbols on sheets of paper then hastily taped them to the top of a rolling chalkboard and begin making notes under them about their meaning and possible significance. 

She had run off several of the gawkers a time or two with a glare from across the room when they glanced her direction. They scattered if she, Skinner, or Agent Stringfield neared or passed by. But they continued to look with surreptitious glances when they weren’t occupied with chasing down leads or researching. 

It was tiresome, although Mulder never seemed to notice them. He had been locked in his own mind, mired in a swamp of depraved thoughts and feelings for days now. She knew he hadn’t been sleeping or eating and that it would catch up with him. She just hadn’t seen it coming in the form it did today. She’d thought she’d made headway in getting him to rest when he’d agreed to sleep for a while. She’d walked him to the room herself and would have tucked him in if his roommate hadn’t been present.

As she washed her hair, she considered that she needed to talk to Skinner and see if he could swap places with the other agent and bunk with Mulder. She thought he would keep a better eye on him but even as she considered it, she knew that wouldn’t necessarily really work. Skinner had his own job to do and couldn’t babysit Mulder every moment. 

That was always her responsibility in the end and while she was the most qualified and in the best position to be his guardian at times like this, Bureau policies made some things harder if not impossible.

In truth, she needed to just move him into the room with her. If they were working the case solo, she would, without hesitation. She would do it even if they weren’t involved in an intimate relationship so that she could watch him like a hawk and make sure he rested, tying his gorgeous ass to the bed if she had to, and ward off anyone who would disturb him.

But they weren’t working the case alone. They had more than a dozen field agents, a supervisory senior agent, and an assistant director as a potential audience, and they’d seen enough as it was. She could only imagine the gossip that had gone on since this afternoon – not that she cared. She hadn’t done a damned thing for Mulder that she wouldn’t have done for anyone else in the same situation. Well, except for maybe asserting her role as personal physician and definitely allowing the unbuttoning her blouse part at the hospital.

Oh God, the look on his face when she came into the room had nearly torn her in two. She’d held herself together by calling on the same discipline that had gotten her through high school, medical school, Quantico, and the last seven years as his partner because he’d needed an anchor and she was his, willingly, as always. 

Ignoring the others in the room, she’d reached out to assure him of her presence, responding to the grieving part of him that had thought she’d been killed by the very evil they sought. The feel of his hand gripping hers, watching him slide down to the floor, exhausted physically and mentally, still half-disbelieving his own senses…

Dana’s throat tightened with a sudden onslaught of emotion that caused her eyes to well with tears. She’d fought it off earlier out of need but now, alone, exhaustion won out and she sobbed, biting her fist to stifle the sound so the agent in the next room wouldn’t hear. But she didn’t indulge for long. 

When she’d regrouped enough emotionally, she finished washing then turned off the water. She dried off, dressed in her pajamas, and slipped into bed. She set her cellphone on the nightstand next to the room phone then shut off the lamp. 

As she lay there in the darkness, she lifted up her partner in earnest prayer, then prayed that they would catch the madman butchering the women in this small community. Then she remembered that she’d left her and Mulder’s guns in the room next door.

She sighed, knowing she would have to wake the agent next door way earlier than he would probably like so she could get the weapons and to pack up Mulder’s toiletries kit. It wasn’t the first time she’d done the latter for similar reasons. He had a bad habit of landing himself in the hospital. She’d honestly lost count of how many times they’d been in this very situation – him hurt and her taking care of him, using her medical skills for more than slicing up the dead.

_Slicing up the dead._

With a groan, Dana turned onto her side and shut her eyes, trying to keep the images Mulder had drawn in his notebook and the autopsy and crime scene photos out of her mind. She tried to focus on good things.

As was its habit of late, her mind supplied images of Mulder’s hands and mouth, his hazel eyes dark with desire, watching her as he made love to her. But then she saw those same eyes blank as his mind turned inward. She saw them brim with melancholy and frustration, and spark with anger. She saw them filled with pain and fear. And then, to her relief, she saw all those negative emotions give way to tiredness and concern for her, then gratitude and love. The latter he had beamed at her before she’d left him to rest in the ICU. 

She briefly smiled at the memory of him kissing her knuckles discreetly, just in case SSA Stringfield had been lingering outside the doorway. The gesture had touched her immensely and made her feel better about leaving him for a while.

His gentle, hooded eyes and long, curling lashes were the last thing she pictured as she fell asleep.


	13. Getting Back in the Saddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?”

Although still feeling a little weak as he returned to the Langford County Ripper Task Force headquarters, Mulder still held the door open for Scully, one hand gripping the frame while the other fell naturally to the small of her back as she passed under his arm. 

He was thankful when she glided in front of him without a glance back, as if it were any other day. He had enough to contend with when it came to his peers and three days ago, they’d seen him at his worst. Well, maybe not his worst – that was Scully’s privilege, or curse – but bad enough. She had wanted him to stay one more day in the hospital but after they’d looked at his notebook and the case files she’d brought to the hospital, he’d talked her into letting him out sooner.

“I’ve got to do this, Scully,” he’d told her last night before she'd headed out for the night.

“I know,” she’d sighed.

A kiss and a promise to be back before rounds with a fresh suit had capped off their evening and now they were getting back into the swing of things, so to speak.

Skinner met them halfway through the room, hands taking up position on his hips. 

“How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?”

“Vertical,” Mulder replied and glanced at Scully. She was several feet away, peering at him from underneath her brow as she removed their homework from her briefcase. A corner of her mouth twitched before she went back to work.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way,” Skinner said sternly. “In regards to your health, you’re going to do whatever Agent Scully tells you to, are we clear?”

Mulder glanced at Scully again. She was still watching him, her expression solemn now. She and Skinner had already talked about this, he realized. They both knew there was a high likelihood that he wouldn’t be able to listen, that he’d get too wrapped up in the killer’s thoughts and lose sight of himself. But he had already promised her he would try, so he would.

“We’re clear,” he said with a nod to his boss. 

“Good,” Skinner repeated then looked at Scully, “Agent Scully, we’re expecting delivery of the case and autopsy files you requested yesterday. The Director pulled out all the stops. They should be here sometime today.”

After he’d been moved to a private room, Scully had spent two days reviewing the paper reports and eventually, with his help, they’d picked out ones that seemed the most likely connected and requested the full files. Getting them so quickly was unexpected, and more than welcome. 

“We’ll set you up in the secondary conference room,” Skinner told her. “If you need help, Agent Lloyd will be available to assist.”

“Thank you, sir,” Scully replied and Mulder watched her gather up the files again and her briefcase and head toward the conference room.

Mulder shrugged when Skinner turned his attention back to him.

“Guess I’ll go do my thing,” he said and started to head to the little office that had felt more like a black hole. 

Skinner stopped him before he got far, catching Mulder’s arm and then turning his head to look at him through those overly-studious glasses for such a big man. Mulder saw a warped reflection of himself in the lenses but he knew Skinner saw him for who and what he was – most of the time.

“Mulder, I know this isn’t your favorite thing to do,” Skinner began, his low and gruff, “and I don’t blame you. But you’ve got to listen to Scully. If you don’t, the Director will boot you and bring in another profiler. I don’t want to lose our progress on this case and I know you don’t either, so do yourself and all of us favor and take care of yourself.”

Mulder nodded and Skinner released his arm.

It was time to get to work.


	14. Always, Mulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cheeseburger with mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles, and a sweet ice tea..."

“Agent Scully, I have your lunch.”

“Thank you, Agent Martin, would you leave it in the chair by the door, please,” Dana replied as she studied the labels on the case file in her hand.

“Sure,” the agent replied and she heard a hesitant note when he asked, “You want me to leave Agent Mulder’s, too?”

“Yes, please,” she said and barely refrained from rolling her eyes at his timidity. It was new development amongst some of the agents since Mulder had returned from the hospital. She could guess as to why.

Dana heard the crinkle of a paper bag and then the departure of the agent. She glanced up to see him pause by the office Mulder occupied before moving on. 

_Still and always a curiosity Mulder, for better or worse._

Looking back to the table, Dana placed the case file in its proper chronological order atop the long conference table. For the last hour, she’d been sorting the five boxes of files by date. They had been delivered before noon, the Director making good on his promise and then some. The files were from FBI Field Offices and police departments around the U.S. and each had some little something that had intrigued her and Mulder during their review. It was now her job to find out how they might connect.

But lunch first. 

She would need the energy when she tackled the upcoming task and her partner definitely needed a break. He’d spent all morning in that little office, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, staring at pictures on the wall. He’d gone from studying one image at a time to arranging groupings from each of the local murders. She’d observed him from time to time, just briefly but enough to know that he was turning in his chair every so often so he could examine a new grouping, like the hour hand on the clock making its way around the ticks on the dial.

Grabbing the takeout sacks brought by Agent Martin, Dana made her way to Mulder’s office. She gave a soft knock to alert him then stepped inside and shut the door behind her. When he didn’t react to her entry, she laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Mulder?” 

He glanced up at her, startled then confused for a moment before recognition dawn. He looked tired and she made a mental note to keep a closer eye on him as the day wore on, to make sure he wasn’t overdoing it.

To engage him further, Dana held up the white paper sack that had writing in red marker. She read the words, easily deciphering the fast-food shorthand, a skill she’d picked up over her years working with him and eating way more greasy-spoon and fast food than she had ever imagined eat in her life.

“Cheeseburger with mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles, and a sweet ice tea,” she announced.

He reached for the bag and she gave it to him. 

“I knew it was love,” he quipped with a half-smile. 

He still looking tired but there was a brightness to his eyes that hadn’t been there in days. That made her smile. Until she glanced about the room at the wallpaper of death and destruction, brutality – the grotesque as performance art. She looked at her partner again.

“Let’s eat elsewhere,” she suggested, “I have heard reports that the weather is very nice out, a balmy sixty degrees, and there’s a picnic table out by the pool.”

“That empty, leaf-ridden pit at the motel?” he asked, raising his eyebrow but getting to his feet all the same.

“Well, there’s a little rainwater in it,” she smirked then turned and headed to the door after he snatched up his jacket from the back of the chair.  She opened it and ushered him through.

“Oh, Scully, you’re all about ambiance,” he said, carefully slinging the jacket over his shoulder, making sure he didn’t hit her with it, which she appreciated.

Smirking, she followed him through the office, ignoring the stares they received from the half-dozen agents not at lunch. She caught A.D. Skinner’s gaze and nodded in acknowledgement. He knew what she was doing and understood why it was necessary even though the others were probably speculating about whether or not she and Mulder were off for an afternoon quickie. 

Frankly, Dana didn’t care what they said around the water-cooler. She never had and never would let gossip, or the potential for it, stop her from taking care of him when he needed it. To care for him right now, she engaged him in their unique bantering style, hoping to keep him occupied with brighter thoughts than he would probably experience the rest of the day.

“Right, like you are Mr. Ambiance, Mulder,” she scoffed, moving up beside him before they made their way through the transitory bullpen. “Need I remind you who in this partnership makes all the travel arrangements and always manages to find the most tacky places imaginable? How do you find those places, by the way? Do you subscribe to some newsletter or magazine?”

He actually laughed in response, which delighted her to no end. She was glad he hadn’t sunken too deeply into the darkness since this morning. It was a long-shot that things would stay that way, but she hoped he could be effective without diving so deep again. She couldn’t help but fear that one day he’d go too deep into the darkness and she wouldn’t be able to help him find his way back.

“You mean like the No-Tell Motel Monthly?” he said. “Why yes, I’m a subscriber, Agent Scully. You should be, too.”

“I’ll stick to _Travel + Leisure_ ,” she countered as he opened the door for her this time.

“You don’t know what you’re missing, Scully,” he stage whispered when she ducked under his arm and stepped out into the crisp air and sunshine.

“I don’t think I’m missing anything since we end up staying in some of those places,” she said as he fell into step beside her.

Neither of them said anything more as they encountered a group of their fellow agents returning from lunch, accompanied by a few local and state law officers. The silence was a comfortable one as they walked the distance to the hotel. 

The picnic table turned out to be a rusting mess, much to her annoyance.

“Is my tetanus shot up to date, Scully?” Mulder asked when he saw it. She just rolled her eyes and turned to the loungers where they’d sat several nights ago. They were dry and in direct sunlight, which took the edge off the winter bite in the moderately cool air. Unfortunately they were also dirty with tree sap, a fact she hadn’t noticed the first time.

“Here,” Mulder said, seeing the same thing. He handed her his sack and strode across the parking lot to his room and returned a minute later with two towels. They had seen better days but would be more than adequate to protect their expensive suits from the elements.

“Thank you,” Dana said to her partner as he laid the one out across her lounger first. 

He shot her a quick smile then did the same for his own chair. 

They sat and ate together. She picked way through a green salad while he consumed his burger and fries. She surreptitiously assessed his physical condition visually from time to time but refrained from asking him how he felt until they’d finished eating.

“The truth?” he asked.

She smiled gently. “Always, Mulder.”

A hint of a smile played along his mouth when he replied quietly, “Tired.”

“Would a nap help?” she asked instead of ordering him to do so. She could and would issue that order if necessary but right now, for now, she wanted him to have a choice.

“Maybe, but not in the way I need,” he said somberly.

She frowned.

“What do you mean?”

He stuffed the wrapper from his burger into the white sack and wadded both up. He held his hand out for her trash and she gave it to him. He set it with his own then propped his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers. He looked at her squarely.

“I can’t see him,” he said then explained, “I can’t take the clonazepam again.”

She had been afraid of that. The drug had let him sleep relatively dreamless or with less intense dreams for the last several days but now it was a hinderance to him using his unique profiling talents. She didn’t like the idea of him giving up one for the other, especially since he wasn’t fully recovered from his collapse. But she couldn’t really stop him from taking the drug if he didn’t want to take it, not even as his doctor.

“I wish you would,” she said softly.

He held his hand out to her and she looked down at his open palm. After a moment, she placed her hand in his and he curled his fingers around hers. They held onto each other.

“We have to catch this guy,” he said. 

They had both been saying daily since they’d arrived. So had Skinner and everybody else.

“I know,” she sighed with irritation, “I just hate the price you pay.”

He gently ran his thumb across her knuckles.

“You know, before you, I’m not sure a single person worried over me,” he murmured, eyes holding hers. “Much less lost sleep over me.”

“I doubt that’s true,” she said, knowing somewhere deep down his mother cared for him and that his father had, too, even if they'd chosen to distance themselves from him emotionally, even physically at times. 

“I want to believe otherwise,” he said, his tone tender. “But I’m not sure I can.”

Dana smiled at him in understanding. Believer and skeptic. Skeptic and believer. _Actions speak louder than words_ , she thought, looking at him. _A parent’s love should be a tangible thing, too._

Easing her hand from his, Dana reached up and touched the scrape on his cheek, studying the scabbing wound, pressing gently around it with her fingertips. The x-rays hadn’t shown a fracture, thankfully, and he didn’t flinch as she explored the injury now. She glanced to his eyes.

“Any pain or soreness?”

“Not bad,” he said as her hand drifted away.

“Before you stop the med, I’d like you to take a short nap, at the very least,” she said. 

“Scully–” he started to protest.

“It’s non-negotiable, Mulder,” she said then, with a partially sincere pout, she snagged his tie and tugged gently. “Please. For me.”

He laughed softly and she knew he recalled a similar exchange last fall, as things were beginning to change between them. He’d humored her then and he humored her now.

“Okay, G-woman.”

Dana smiled and let relief and gratitude fill her voice when she responded with a soft “thank you.”


	15. Take It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were two halves of a whole, connected, intertwined, inseparable even when they weren’t engaged in such an intimate act. 
> 
> Warning: This scene contains explicit material.

She was beautiful writhing beneath him, her hot sex gripping him. She was soaking wet. There was no friction, only smooth, gliding strokes into her depths. 

“Fuck, yes,” he rasped in her ear. “So fucking good, Scully.”

Her nails made stinging crescents in the skin of his back and he welcomed the bite of them, and the soft, sultry sounds she made in his ear. He could fuck her forever. He wanted to fuck her forever. He had never wanted that with another lover, had never desired any woman the way he desired her, wanting to draw her within himself to love and protect, to immerse himself in her body and mind. 

They were two halves of a whole, connected, intertwined, inseparable even when they weren’t engaged in such an intimate act. 

Dana Scully was his destiny, not his quest for the truth. That was their destiny, together. His personal fate was to be her companion. He thought she felt the same when her hands grasped his ass and she kissed neck, whispering what she wanted from him. 

“Fuck me, Mulder,” she breathed. “Fuck me harder.”

He pushed himself up on his arms and looked down at her and froze. Her skin was gray, her lips were blue, her corneas whited over with death. She was cold. So cold.

“God, no,” he rasped and jerked away from her, moving until his back hit something solid. He startled when arms came around him. A scalpel moved into his line of vision, a hand holding it up to him. 

“Take it,” came a voice at his ear.

He refused, shaking his head. “I won’t,” he said, panic and anger rising.

Anger from whatever was behind him pushed through his chest and blanketed her body in a red haze.

“Take it,” hissed the voice in his ear. “Make her bleed.” 

Mulder looked at his partner, his friend, his lover. She was no longer blue. She was pink and healthy and alive and terrified and if he cut her, she would bleed. Scully would die. He would take her life.

“No!” he called out and tried to turn. He couldn’t. He was held immobile. He could only move his hand and the thing was again beckoning him to take the scalpel.

He wouldn't. He reached for his gun instead. It was on his hip. His hand closed around the grip and he yanked it free of the holster and put the barrel against his chest…


	16. Observation & Speculation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Give me the gun, Mulder,” Dana Scully said then, her tone firm and tight with fear, but carrying an unmistakable undertone of reassurance.

“Agent Mulder!” 

Agent David Farnsworth was pushing hard at Fox Mulder’s hand, trying to get the gun away from his chest. The son of a bitch had woken up yelling moments ago, startling Farnsworth from a dead sleep. He’d flipped on the light to see Mulder with his back against the wall, posture ramrod straight, as if being held there, gun in hand, arm rising, and turning the barrel to his own body. Farnsworth had quickly clambered from the bed at the sight and was now trying to wrestle the firearm from the man’s death grip.

“Put the gun down, Mulder!” he yelled but the agent’s hold on the weapon only tightened, determined.

Then Mulder suddenly stilled when a pale, neatly manicured hand touched his face. 

Farnsworth watched feminine fingers cradle Mulder’s jaw and heard the distinct click of the clip being released from the gun. He heard the clip land on the carpeted floor and glanced over to see Mulder’s partner looking at him, her gaze deeply concerned. Farnsworth returned his focus to Mulder, just in case things got out of hand – there was probably one round in the chamber.

“Give me the gun, Mulder,” Dana Scully said then, her tone firm and tight with fear, but carrying an unmistakable undertone of reassurance. 

Farnsworth watched the taller man relax further then look to his partner. The fear, grief, and rage he’d seen moments ago in Mulder’s gaze morphed into recognition.

“Let me have the gun,” she repeated, her voice softer now that she apparently had his attention. She sounded resolutely confident that Mulder would comply but Farnsworth kept his grip on Mulder’s arm until the agent relinquished the weapon to her. 

Farnsworth stepped back then and watched Scully eject the remaining round from the gun then begin to take care of her trembling, sweat-soaked partner. Clad in a pair of conservative, blue satin pajamas, her tiny feet barely sticking out from the leg cuffs of the blousy pants, she placed a steady hand on the center of Mulder’s chest and pressed.

“You’re awake now. Just breathe, Mulder,” Farnsworth heard Scully say. 

Mulder took a shallow, shuddering breath in response then exhaled it hard and fast. She repeated her command and Mulder’s eyes fell shut. The agent took several more breaths, each a bit slower and easier.

“That’s it. Just breathe, Mulder,” Scully encouraged, her voice gentling even more, to something almost intimate.

Farnsworth dropped his exhausted body down on the side of his bed and watched Mulder eventually open his eyes and look at his partner again.

“You with me now?” she asked and Mulder nodded.

“Same dream?” she asked.

“Variation on a theme,” Mulder replied and his voice was so low and hoarse that Farnsworth wondered if it was the result of him screaming himself awake or if that’s just how he sounded when woken from sleep. Or was it because of who was talking to?

Scully looked down at her partner’s chest and the huge sweat stain beneath her hand. She frowned and reached up and touched Mulder’s brow. It was a gesture Farnsworth recognized, that of a mother checking the temperature of a child. Or that of a doctor assessing a patient.

She sighed and briefly touched Mulder’s cheek again, meeting his gaze.

“Take a lukewarm shower,” she said and without protest, Mulder got to his feet, went into the bathroom, and shut the door behind him. 

Farnsworth watched her watch him every step of the way, worry etched in her features. He waited until he heard the water running before speaking, probably insensitively. 

“How the hell do you work with that crazy bastard?”

Farnsworth wasn’t really surprised when she didn’t answer but instead cut him an irritated look. Her and Mulder’s protectiveness of one another was legendary in the Bureau. He was a bit surprised, however, when she went over to Mulder’s bag and pulled out dry clothing – a t-shirt, jeans, socks, _and_ underwear – then knocked on the bathroom door. 

“You in?” she asked. 

When Mulder indicated affirmatively, Farnsworth watched her quickly step inside then come back out just as fast, the clothing left behind. She did not spare a glance for Farnsworth as she shut the door quietly then went to the closet and pulled out a leather jacket. She laid the garment on Mulder’s bed and confirmed his wallet and badge were in the inside breast pocket. She then retrieved the clip and once-chambered round from the floor and reassembled Mulder’s weapon.

Only then did she acknowledge Farnsworth again, by issuing a command, her tone no-nonsense and entirely that of a chagrined doctor. Or Army general.

“Have him come next door when he’s finished,” she said, taking both weapons back to her room and leaving the adjoining doors open.

When Mulder emerged from the bathroom showered and dressed, Farnsworth told him what Scully had said then watched Mulder, who looked haggard and thoroughly haunted, grab up his jacket and stride toward the doorway and disappear into his partner’s room.

When his roommate didn’t close the adjoining door either, Farnsworth found himself eavesdropping, hearing Scully ask her partner how he was feeling and if he wanted to take something. Mulder spoke too low for him to hear and Farnsworth only heard her by virtue of women’s voices carrying farther. But then he couldn’t hear her any more.

What he did hear was the jingle of keys and then a door shut tightly.

Rising, Farnsworth went over to the window and parted a pair of blind slats just enough to peer out. He saw the Mulder and Scully set out across the parking lot in the direction of the task force headquarters. As they passed beneath a night-watcher, he could see that Scully had dressed in attire similar to her partner’s and that neither of them appeared to be talking like he’d seen them do earlier in the day. In fact, they were both looking straight ahead. 

Farnsworth wondered if they were going to work then decided he didn’t give a shit. He had a chance to get some decent sleep with Spooky out of the room. He’d enjoyed a few good nights’ worth when the agent had been in the hospital and another would be welcome. He hated feeling that way and was starting to feel bad about having complained to his colleagues about having to share close quarters with Mulder and his fucking nightmares. It was a shit billet, but tonight had been a hell of a lot more than an inconvenience. 

He honestly didn’t know how Agent Scully dealt with it so calmly despite having been clearly as terrified as Farnsworth had been to wake up and see Mulder about to execute himself. He wondered if it was a product of her medical training – most doctors were unflappable in his experience - or from years of working with the lunatic. 

One thing was certain, though, there was a clear trust, tempered and unwavering, between the pair that spoke to something deeper than Farnsworth had ever shared with any of his partners. 

 _Would getting horizontal in that basement office explain that?_ he wondered then decided he didn’t give a shit about that either, unlike some of his peers.

With yet another sigh, Farnsworth went over to the nightstand, turned off the light, and crawled into his bed. Unfortunately, he didn’t fall asleep right away, images of Mulder’s madness and clear intent to kill himself surfacing in the dark. If he hadn’t woken up when he had, the man’s guts would have been splattered on the wall.

That particularly unpleasant image startled him into realizing there was something he needed to do and should have done immediately after Agent Scully had the situation in hand. 

“Shit.”  

Sitting up, he reached for the ancient black phone on the nightstand and dialed up A.D. Skinner and SSA Stringfield’s room, wondering as the phone rang if Scully’s efficiently handling of her partner was what had made him just _forget_ protocol.

That Farnsworth did give a shit about.


	17. Prescribed Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The poignancy of her prescription wasn’t lost on him...
> 
>  
> 
> Warning: Contains sexually explicit content

Mulder trembled as her hand moved over his cock and her mouth staked claim to his.

They were in a Bureau sedan, parked in a tree-concealed pullout on a gravel road, off the main highway, and to all intents and purposes, making out.

_No_ , he corrected, _making love._

She’d surprised him when she hadn’t wanted to talk about what had almost happened in his room. She’d simply told him they were going for a drive then surprised him further by she parking the car on this deserted country road and proceeding to _fill_  her prescription for his stress. Sex. It was a tried-and-usually reliable remedy for inducing sleep in the human male, including chronic insomniacs like himself.

Mulder would forever remember the sight of her shucking her jeans and panties then climbing across the front seat to straddle him. He’d found himself smiling into her kiss when she reached and grabbed the latch on the side of the seat, sending the back barreling down under their weight.

She’d pulled her lips from his, smiled, and looked down at him with eyes full of humor and brightness and life.

He’d unbuttoned her blouse in response and she’d pulled down the cups of her bra to spill out her breasts for his mouth. At the first pull of his tongue, she’d moaned then offered vocal encouragement.

“That feels good,” she’d breathed and reached down between them and opened his fly to free his cock.

Her touch was gentle, healing and loving, and he did his best to not think about his nightmare. He focused on the feel of her instead, of her warm skin, the hardness of her nipples against his tongue, and the softness of her breasts as he suckled, palmed, and fondled each in turn. He found her pussy hot, silky wet when he eased two long fingers inside her and circled his thumb over her clit.

Her neck arched and she made soft, urgent sounds of desire, sometimes breathily gasped his name. He let her sounds fill his ears until he heard only them, the rush of his own breath, and beat of his heart. 

Whenever his dream-memories began to encroach, he pulled back and she met his gaze and held it while she worked her hand over his length. She handled him with intimate care, like a lover and not a physician, telling him she loved him with dexterous fingers and smoothing palm.

“Scully,” he whispered after a time and shifted his grip on her pussy, curling his fingers forward in search of that spot on her front vaginal wall.

She gasped and released him to brace both hands on the seat, to either side of his shoulders. She looked at him with sexual excitement.

“G-woman. G-spot,” he teased, stroking her, and watched her smile sultrily.

“You think you’re funny,” she breathed then clenched her muscles around his digits, trying to pull them deeper. 

_Fuck…_

A heartbeat then two and she eased her grip and reached for his cock again. He moved his hand as she rose up on her knees and dragged the head of his dick along her slick slit. 

_Fuck…_

“Give me you,” she panted, poising him at her entrance, lowering just enough to secure their alignment before bracing her hands on the seat again. “Come on Mulder,” she coaxed when he hesitated. 

He grasped her hips in response and pulled her slowly down onto him. 

“Fuck,” she groaned and he echoed her, watched as her lids lowered to conceal her eyes. Her head tipped back, baring her neck to him. 

He lifted his head and kissed the dip at the base of her throat, tongued it gently then lay back and watched her ride him. The slow roll of her hips felt like it could be fatal. It felt so fucking good to be inside her, to witness her pleasure and know she was finding it because of him. 

How the hell they had ignored this for nearly seven years was beyond him but he knew why their no-sex-when-in-the-field policy had fallen mostly to the wayside. She was like a drug he never wanted to quit. Neither of them could seem to turn down physical intimacy when the opportunity was before them. He knew they possessed enough discipline to resist when necessary – they had so far on this case, once the other agents arrived – but tonight was a concession to his need for the comfort of her lithe body, warm and seductive, in counterpoint to her doppelgänger in his nightmares.

The poignancy of her prescription wasn’t lost on him, that she’d thought of it when he hadn’t been able to think at all touched him immeasurably. He was struck again by what a rare and precious gift her love and trust was, and how lucky he was to experience her mind, soul, and body.

Hands on her thighs, he looked down between them to see her breasts sway above his chest, and lower to see her take his erection in and out of her. His shaft and her pubic hairs glistened in the ray of moonlight that fell through the windshield.

“Look at me,” he spoke softly, eyes seeking her face. His voice was a rumbling sound deep in his chest but a rasp in his throat. 

She did, her blue eyes dark with desire and inquisitive.

“Tell me what you feel,” she commanded on a breath.

He blindly touched her cheek, fingertips grazing her smooth skin down to her jaw, to her chin, and along her throat. He felt her swallow. 

“You,” he murmured, his hands moving up to take hold of her breasts again. She let out a thready breath and pressed her tits into his palms.

Still holding his gaze, she breathed, “Tell me how I feel.”

“Hot … wet … tight …,” he panted softly and rolled his hips under her, pushing deeper and making her gasp. He squeezed her breasts, “… soft …” he captured her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, “… hard.”

She watched him intently, asked on a quickened breath, “Alive?”

“Yes,” he answered and lifted his head as she bowed. Their lips met and melded into a slow, sensual kiss that made his head spin. He eased his arms around her, sliding them up beneath the soft material of her blouse and over her back. He felt graceful muscles shifting beneath her skin, felt her tremble when he brushed his tongue against hers, felt her press close to him and rub her clit against his pubic bone on each undulation of her hips.

With a soft sound of pleasure, she fitted their mouths together with expert precision and he momentarily forgot how to breathe when she ground down onto his cock, pushing him deep. 

He gasped when she suddenly sat up, releasing his mouth. He moaned when she planted her hands on his chest and fucked him, slowly and deliberately. She watched him and in her eyes was a challenge.

“Look at me when you come,” she whispered stridently. 

Her words sent a blaze of desire rocketing through his groin, causing his balls to draw up tight. He sent one hand between them to find her clit, knowing his release was imminent.

“Oh God, yes,” she panted and began a litany of “ohs” as he thumbed her clit.

“Come for me, Scully,” he pleaded. “I want to watch you.”

He felt her orgasm begin, the rippling of her vaginal walls around his cock, biologically beseeching him to come, too, wanting him with her at the end.

“Come with me,” she gasped, eyes still on his, nails digging into his chest now. 

He did, almost immediately, shooting hot inside her as her body shuddered and spasmed atop him. 

He saw her at her crest and could have wept. 

She was alive … beautifully, wonderfully alive.


	18. Tell Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me what you saw in your dream.”
> 
>  
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains some mature content.

“Tell me what you saw in your dream.”

Dana Scully made the request as she lay cuddled against her partner’s chest, her face tucked into the crook of his neck while his arms secured to him. Her butt was starting to get cold but the rest of her was warm and she didn’t want to move just yet. She wanted to know what he’d seen in his sleep, what had followed him into the waking world with such vividness that he got out of bed, unholstered his gun, and believed shooting himself in the chest was the only way to deal with it. 

Dana shivered at the memory of seeing Agent Farnsworth wrestling with Mulder over the gun, and Mulder’s determination to finish what he’d started. She would live with that image for the rest of her days but determinedly filed it away with the other equally frightening ones from the years of their partnership, knowing that his actions might have appeared suicidal but were far from it.

Beneath her, he sighed and she wondered if his response would be evasive or transparent. 

“We were making love,” he said after a moment then hesitated. 

She shifted to look at him, rising enough to see his face. His eyes found hers in the night shadows.

“Tell me,” she prodded. 

“Then you were dead,” he said, one of his hands coming up to caress her cheek. “He was trying to make me take a scalpel and…”

He trailed off and his gaze flickered with pain and grief. Her heart went out to him. 

“I could only move my arm and hand,” he explained after a moment, his voice barely louder than a breath, “So I grabbed my gun instead…”

Dana felt the prick of tears. “To end it,” she finished for him.

He nodded and gently brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. She turned her head and kissed his palm. Then she kissed him, lips lovingly pressing to his and lingering when his hand slipped around to the back of her neck and held her close. 

One kiss became two, then three. 

She pressed her brow to his and made a decision.

“I’m telling Skinner that I’m moving you into my room,” she said softly. “Maybe it’ll stop the dreams from being about me if I’m closer.”

“Scully, we can’t,” he said and she raised to look at him. 

“I don’t give a damn about Bureau policy,” she told him directly. “I’m your doctor and your care is my responsibility. As for what anyone might say, it’s nothing that they haven’t been saying for years. And, yes,” she continued when she saw him starting to protest further and knowing what he would next say, “I know that I’ll be the one to suffer the worst of it. It’s the lot of women to carry the _shame_ of men.”

She wasn’t talking about Mulder’s shame, but the shame of those who would impugn her for a decision of her heart simply because she was the female in the equation, a decision years in the making, respectfully nurtured, and eventually undertaken _with him_. He knew that as well as she did, which is why he worried, but she couldn’t care less. 

Dana had ceased worrying about the frivolities of societal expectations, along with Bureau and career politics about six months into their partnership. Only occasionally did they resurge but she always pushed them back into their proper places because, frankly, she and Mulder often faced bigger issues with much higher stakes.

To her, Mulder’s life was worth incalculably more than bullshit gossip that might cast her in scarlet-letter light. Truthfully, the only thing that frightened her was the possibility of their partnership being officially dissolved by the Bureau. But that took a back seat to the more frightening prospect of any of their remaining enemies using their ever-deepening connection against them. But even then, there was a point where the immediate need to protect him was greater than all those things. 

An hour ago, he’d been poised to put a bullet in his heart, ending his own life to avoid committing atrocities on her body in his dreams. That was a sobering reality and she considered that perhaps it was a good thing that his roommate had witnessed the incident. 

They might call Mulder _spooky_ and label him crazy, but at least they would know that profiling put him in very real danger from internal forces, and that if he was moved into her room, it was to safeguard his life. She was fairly certain Skinner would agree with her view since he had worried about Mulder during the case with Patterson, but she wasn’t sure he would officially back her plan. There was only one way to find out, though.

“I’ll talk to Skinner,” she said, gently cradling Mulder’s jaw as he cradled her cheek. “I’ll tell him you’ll take the other bed and leave your gun with me while you sleep. It will make it easier to make sure you eat and aren’t overdoing it, and I’ll be there if…”

She let her voice trail off because there was no need to remind him of the night’s events.

“He might go for that,” Mulder sounded similarly cautious in his assessment of Skinner. “But you need to be sure, Scully. It was your policy to not share a bed when we’re in the field.”

She smiled indulgently. 

“We’ve already broken that rule, Mulder, more than once, as you know. But much as I’d love to share a bed with you on this case, especially with everything going on, I’m suggesting you take the other bed in my room. That’s all it can be right now.”

He smiled at her, a gentle expression. “You know you’re the strong one in this partnership.”

“Sometimes,” she said, knowing that there were times he was stronger than her.

“Most of the time,” he objected then smoothed his hand around her shoulder and down her back atop the white cotton of her blouse.

“You’re cold,” he said when he reached the exposed skin of her hip. She was but it didn’t stop him from slipping his fingers up and swirling around that tattoo at the base of her spine. He sometimes did that but she didn’t know why. She wondered but didn’t ask, at least not about that.

“Are you hungry?”

He smirked and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“For food, Mulder,” Dana shook her head with a smile. “That little diner by the hospital is open twenty-four hours and you didn’t eat much supper.”

“Noticed that, did you?” he asked as she sat up. 

She quirked and eyebrow. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

He smiled an easy, if tired, smile and set his hands on her hips. “No,” he answered and lazily watched her tuck her breasts back into her bra.

Dana smiled then reached for her panties in the other seat. She looked at him, blushing when she told him things were about to get messy.

“Here, let me,” he said to her surprise. She handed him the panties and he helped her clean up as she lifted off him, letting the tip of his softened cock slide out of her. She thanked him with a blush then clumsily made her way over to the driver’s seat while he took care of himself, too.

Her blush deepened profusely when she saw him open the glove box and pull out an evidence bag. As he tucked her panties into it, she quickly told him to put it in her coat pocket; last thing she needed was for that to end up somewhere it didn’t belong.

He did as she asked then raised the seat up fully. She started the car and reached for the gearshift as he refastened his seatbelt. Before she could put it into gear, though, he touched her arm. 

She looked over at him and saw him leaning toward her. She leaned to meet him for a kiss that she could only define as sweet, rather like the one he’d given her at New Year’s.

When he withdrew, his expression mirrored the tender affection she felt for him.

“Thank you, Scully,” he said softly.

Her heart fluttered and she smiled.

“Let’s get something to eat.”


	19. This is bad, Mulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fox Mulder ignored the looks cast his and Scully’s direction as they approached the little brick house where another victim had been found. 
> 
> Warning: Graphic crime scene imagery

****Fox Mulder ignored the looks cast his and Scully’s direction as they approached the little brick house where another victim had been found. He was certain news of his nightmare had spread by now but he had bigger concerns than gossip.

Mulder flashed his badge to the officer on the other side of the crime scene barrier then grasped and lifted the yellow-and-black tape for Scully to pass under. He spotted A.D. Skinner and SSA Stringfield on the porch talking to Detective Jessup, the local sheriff, and police chief. The porch light was off but the strobing lights of emergency vehicles cast them in enough light to make out their particularly unsettled expressions.

“This is bad, Mulder,” he heard Scully say when Skinner looked their direction.

Taking in Skinner’s body language and his rapid dismount from the porch, Mulder concurred.

“Yeah,” he said and picked up his pace to close the distance to their boss.

“Agents,” Skinner acknowledged them with a curt nod then looked pointedly at Scully before casting a furtive glance at Mulder. He clearly wanted to say something but whatever it was, he was reluctant to say it. 

 _In front of me or Scully?_ Mulder didn’t like it either way and he liked what Skinner _did_ say even less.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go in there,” Skinner cautioned, which immediately made Mulder want to go inside. And probably Scully, although she was more likely to listen to any reasoning Skinner had.

“Why?” Mulder asked, bringing Skinner’s full attention to him.

“Could you give us a moment, Agent Mulder?” Skinner asked instead of answering Mulder’s question.

_So it's me._

Mulder was formulating a follow-up question when Scully intervened.

“Sir, if this is about earlier–” she started but Skinner cut her off with a look.

“It isn’t,” their boss said, adding anxiously, “Not exactly.”

Mulder scowled, confused, and glanced at Scully to see that her expression matched what he felt. Unlike her, though, he didn’t wait for an explanation. Without a word, he quickly moved around Skinner and made a beeline for the house. Whatever was in there, he needed to see it, and not just because it was his job. Something about Skinner’s caution had his _spooky-sense_ tingling and that he couldn’t ignore.

“Mulder,” he heard Scully calling after him, her concern evident. He ignored her, knowing that if Skinner had told her why he didn’t want them inside, she’d try to talk Mulder out of going in. 

_And I am going in…_

Dodging SSA Stringfield and the other officials on the porch, he crossed the threshold and–

–came to a dead stop. 

He could see _exactly_ why Skinner hadn’t wanted him to go in.

There on the dining table was the body of a woman, elaborately dissected, her sex sliced open and vulgarly displayed to anyone who walked in the front door. She was maybe in her early- to mid-thirties and petite … with short red hair and what had probably once been vibrant blue eyes.

Images from his nightmare flashed in his mind’s eye, overlaying the flesh-and-blood reality not twenty feet away. 

He felt the room starting to spin then something firm pressing against his chest; there was something at his back, too. Some part of his brain registered that it was Scully’s hand and a wall. He heard her saying his name and telling him to breathe. Then she ordered everyone else out of the room.

“If you’re not doing anything vital, stop gawking and get out.”

Her tone was sharp and commanding and he heard her clearly even though it felt like his head was wrapped in cotton. He heard her telling Skinner to step outside, too, and would have been amused if he wasn’t lost in an off-kilter vortex of horrific imagery. 

His dream. The reality. They were blending. 

_She looks…_

“Mulder, look at me.”

He looked at her. The _her_ in front of him. Not the _her_ splayed out on the table. 

_Scully._

Her features were cast in harsh lines of worry, her blue eyes were saturated with it.

“It’s not me,” she said, her voice pitched so only he could hear.

He nodded and brought a shaking hand up and gripped her shoulder. He used the solid warmth of her as an anchor while he tried to get his breathing under control. Frankly, he was surprised he was still standing.

“Do you want to do this?” she asked him, her voice softer now, her eyes searching his. 

Others might look at him askance if he said no, but she wouldn’t. She would protect him if it came to that, but he needed to do it if he was going to be of any use in finding this killer.

“I have to,” he said and she looked neither pleased nor displeased with the answer, just resigned.

“Then I want you to go outside and get your bearings,” she said. “Come back in when you’re ready.”

He wanted to protest the first part of that order but he didn’t. It was a sound direction. Outside, he could clear his mind and catch his breath. He started to look up but she quickly moved her hand from his chest to his cheek, keeping his attention on her.

“Don’t look yet. Clear your head first,” she commanded, emoting both compassion and confidence, adding, “I’ll get started.”

“Okay,” he said, having no desire to argue. Besides, she was right. He needed to center himself before he studied the horror show in depth. He needed to definitively separate his most recent nightmare from this particular crime scene.

With a nod to her, he turned and eased back outside and where he met his boss’s gaze. 

“You all right?” asked SSA Stringfield, who flanked Skinner.

Mulder nodded. “Scully’s going to get started.”

Mulder watched Skinner stare through the doorway, undoubtedly to assess Scully’s disposition. The victim bore just enough resemblance to her that Mulder wasn’t surprised it disturbed Skinner, too. It was hard to tell with Scully, though. She was stoic when she wanted to be, which was most of the time, but Mulder knew she wasn’t impervious. She coped in private, or sometimes with him. She had never liked audiences for her disquiet and that dislike had only grown over the years.

“Sometimes, I don’t know how she does her job,” Skinner scowled. 

Mulder understood the dire admiration in his boss’s voice. More than once, he’d been awed by Scully’s fortitude. How she’d looked terminal cancer square in the eye and continued to fight came to mind.

“She’s the strongest person I’ve ever known,” Mulder said under his breath. “A hell of a lot stronger than I am.”

Skinner’s gaze found Mulder again. “SSA Stringfield told me that your nightmares have been about Scully as a victim, so I have to ask … can you do this?”

Now that he knew what was waiting inside … Mulder nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I just need a minute.”

He watched Skinner look back inside then turn and look out across the yard. “Me, too,” he grumbled.


	20. Taking Shape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Men are the weaker gender. Or, perhaps more diplomatically stated, women are stronger in ways men are not.

Men are the weaker gender. Or, perhaps more diplomatically stated, women are stronger in ways men are not. 

Ongoing scientific research indicates that women live longer and are more resilient against illness and disease, but the most irrefutable way in which women outstripped men, Fox Mulder believed, was that women are much better survivors of psychological trauma.

As Mulder reviewed photographs from the latest crime scene, he wondered if this killer’s victims would have been able to survive the damage to their psyche had they been found before death. Particularly if the killer had already begun flaying them alive.

That was a new development. Another escalation.

According to blood spatter analysis, the previous victims had all been eviscerated and dissected post-mortem, most likely minutes after death, just long enough for the heart to stop beating. But Jennifer Leigh Wilson had been alive and may even have been conscious when the killer cut into her body and began removing organs. 

Mulder could not imagine a more terrifying way to die and suspected that the victim’s terror was exactly what the killer wanted to consume. Although he wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if blatant signs of cannibalism were found at the next crime scene, or possibly the one after.

Mulder hated thinking about the likelihood of future deaths and what they might entail. It was a deep, dark hole that extinguished all light within and any brought into it. In the hours since returning from the crime scene, he’d waded into that darkness, shutting himself away in the little office with the pictures from previous crimes. 

Something itched at the back of his mind as he reviewed them again, and the new ones when they were brought in. He was missing something; he was certain of it. This killer was methodical, detailed, and precise, exactly like his handiwork with a scalpel. And he was angry furious … incensed … apoplectic.

His rage was controlled but burned hot. The killing itself was rooted in that emotion. The other things, the cutting, that was fueled by something else. It was a point of pride, showing off. It wasn't ritualistic but it had more meaning than the symbols he smeared on the walls with the victim’s blood. Those still held no meaning in terms of a literal message, but their presence meant something. There was a reason and it wasn’t just to tweak the nose of authorities, although there was an element of that in everything about the crime scene:

_Look at me. Look what I can do. Look how good I am at it and how bad you are at finding me._

Closing his eyes, he could see Jennifer Leigh Wilson opening the front door to her home and a man there on the porch. He stood in the shadows and Mulder could not see him, but Jennifer did and she knew the man or at least recognized him. There was no sign of forced entry into the home or significant struggle.

_She let him in and she’s not afraid, yet._

Evidence at the scene did not provide a picture of their interaction. Mulder did not know if she offered him something to drink, if he did or did not accept it. Same for something to eat. Did he stop by to pick something up or drop something off? Was he a friend stopping by to take out the trash or fix a leaky pipe? Was he someone she knew casually, in passing? She worked as a bank teller in a small community so it was possible.

All the killings appeared to have occurred in the evening. None of the victims had neighbors who lived in line of sight. The killer could literally be anyone. The trash man, the local pharmacist, the pastor of the Methodist church down the road. He could be a school teacher, a bus driver, or the guy who flipped burgers at the diner. Hell, a toothless, banjo-playing bubba with a taxidermy shop could be the man they’re looking for, but Mulder highly doubted it.

In fact, he was certain that whoever was killing these women lived in plain sight. The people here knew him in some capacity, some probably better than others, but none so well that they knew or even sensed what he was. He was ordinary – possibly extraordinary in his ordinariness – or he was at least perceived that way, as somehow defective, any of which would grate on his sense of grandeur. Especially if he was the elite medical professional Scully theorized. That would keep the psychopathic home fires burning and all it’d take was the right spark to turn it into a raging inferno.

Problem was, Scully’s search had yet to turn up any suspects amongst local residents. 

While Mulder had entered the darkness, his partner had been searching in the light, combing through the files sent in from the field offices, still looking for similar crimes in other areas, seeking more leads, more clarity, more anything that would help the case. 

She was tenacious. He believed she would find something. He felt they both would. This guy was going to make a mistake at some point. He was going to leave a vital clue that would lead to his capture. Mulder suspected he may already have. That itch at the back of his brain was not going away.

With a groan of frustration, he slumped forward, elbows on his knees, and hung his head. He fucking hated this kind of work. He hated how it made him feel. He hated how quickly it had erased the brief hour or so of contentment he’d felt with Scully last night. 

Sex had been the perfect distraction, as had the covert, flirty conversation they’d had over coffee and a basket of fries at the diner afterward. He would give most anything to go back to those moments right before her cellphone rang. She had been about to tell him about her first kiss. He’d wanted to hear that story and any others she might have shared. But the call had come and they’d made their way to another crime scene and a victim that looked far too much like her for his comfort. 

Mulder had avoided any further nightmares by going to work immediately. A glance at his watch told him it was late afternoon, heading toward evening. That surprised him. He’d expected Scully to seek him out hours ago, to at least make sure he’d eaten. But she hadn’t and he knew she’d finished the autopsy by breakfast.

Fighting off a flare of irrational worry, he stood and looked toward the conference room where she’d been working on the files. He could see the top of her head. She was standing but bent over the table looking through a loupe at a photo. There was another agent in the room, standing at the other end, staring at her ass. 

That pissed him off. 

Yeah, she had a great ass – he loved her ass – but that guy had no business looking. She wasn’t his to look at for one thing – an utter caveman thought that she would not appreciate – and they had a job to do for another – a thought with which she would wholeheartedly agree.

Without making a decision to do so, Mulder stepped to the door, yanked it open, and strode confidently down to the conference room. He glared at the man – Agent Laramie – as he passed him and took up a position beside his partner, blocking the agent’s view.

“You got anything?”

“Maybe,” she sighed, straightened and turned toward the large cork board at the end of the room. She had six columns across a row, each column represented the local murders, with names photos of the victims, dates of death, and a few other vital details beneath each. And there was a second row below that with three columns started, each had a white sheet of paper with a hand-drawn question mark and date. 

“I have found three cases with a high probability of being attributable to our guy,” she said.

Mulder looked down to the table as she gestured to three open folders. 

“The scenes were considerably less staged but there are symbols that look similar to those found at the scenes here.”

Mulder watched as she laid out photos from each scene, each with a symbol or symbols highlighted. 

“They’re on the walls like the others.”

“Yes, but some of them are at odd angles,” she said. “I believe they are definitely close enough to deserve our attention.”

The symbols flashed through his mind as he reviewed the images with her. That itch in the back of his mind intensified.

“Hang on.”

Mulder made a quick dash down to the office he’d been using, grabbed a stack of photocopies and took them back to the conference room. Each sheet had one of the symbols printed and with her help, he began taping them across the glass wall so that they could see them all together.

“Mulder, what symbols were at which scene?” she asked after a moment and he glanced over to see her frowning intently. He recognized that look.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She went back to the table and turned the folders around to look at again. 

“If these are the same symbols and our killer is leaving them at every scene,” she said, gesturing over her should to the wall and then back to the table, “Then some are missing.”

His eyes followed her finger as she pointed to each symbol, counting them off as she went from case file to case file to case file…

“There’s one less at each scene,” he said. 

“Or one more,” she noted. “As you go forward chronologically, there’s at least one more symbol in the cases here; in these others, two or three.”

“These other cases were all in the same region or city?” he asked, indicating the case files she had selected.

“Memphis and the surrounding area,” she answered. 

 _Then some cases have yet to be identified_ , he thought to himself. This killer was methodical. If there’s one new symbol at the most recent crime scenes, in conjunction with his escalation, then it was highly unlikely he’d added more than one at the previous scenes.

“There are more murders,” he said aloud then glanced up at the cork board to see the deaths occurred over a ten-month span. He felt a flare of hope.

“I don’t want to jump the gun, Mulder,” Scully said and he heard tempered hope in her voice too, “But if there is a descending number of symbols as we go back, we have a trail to follow.”

"We need to determine the first symbol,” Mulder nodded. The first symbol, if they found that, they could possibly find Victim Zero. If they found Victim Zero, they had a better chance of finding the murderer. The first kill was almost always the most personal.

“This is good work, Scully,” he said, flush with pride.

Special Agent Dana Scully, MD, was an outstanding forensic pathologist, but she was a damned fine investigator, too, smart, analytical, and tenacious. 

 _And pragmatic_ , he mused when she said, looking up at him, “At the very least, we have something specific to look for.”


	21. No Rest for the Weary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dana Scully’s eyes were tired, her feet were sore, and her back ached. She wanted a hot shower, something to eat, and about three days worth of uninterrupted sleep. But she would settle for the first two and a power nap."

****Dana Scully’s eyes were tired, her feet were sore, and her back ached. She wanted a hot shower, something to eat, and about three days worth of uninterrupted sleep. But she would settle for the first two and a power nap.

She shared her wish list with her partner as they sat akimbo, side-by-side on the floor in the middle of the conference room. They were staring at the timeline and symbol breakdown that they’d been assembling all afternoon. 

To narrow their focus, Skinner had the other agents move the table to the breakroom. Those agents were now sifting through the other case files, looking for the symbols in hopes of finding the killer’s other victims. The three files she’d pulled that morning were spread out on the floor in front of her and Mulder, along with the six files from the local killings.

“You should go rest for a while,” Mulder said.

She sighed and turned her head side to side, stretching the tendons in her neck. A vertebra popped and she groaned.

“Only if you go, too,” she said tiredly.

“You’re not going to order me, Dr. Scully?”

She snorted and glanced up at him. “Would you honestly go if I did?”

He was smirking. “Probably not.”

Dana watched him run his hand over his face then scratch at the stubble growing along his jaw. He usually shaved every morning but they hadn’t been back to their hotel room since late last night. He was looking quite grizzled and even more exhausted than she felt.

“What if I asked nicely?” she prodded.

He looked over at her with bloodshot eyes but another voice chimed in before he could speak.

“It doesn’t matter because I’m ordering you both.”

Dana looked up to see A.D. Skinner standing in the doorway to the conference room. He was looking down at them with a mixture of worry, pride, and resolve. The latter all but guaranteed that she and Mulder were about to go fulfill her wish list, whether they were inclined to do so or not.

“Go on,” their boss said, not waiting for an answer. “Get out of here. I don’t want to see either of you back here until morning. We’ll cover things until then and I’ll let you know if we find anything critical.”

That’s all Dana needed to get moving. She slowly pushed herself up while Mulder did the same. They grabbed up their coats in unison and quietly dragged themselves from the task force headquarters to the motel, where they parted, each entering their respective rooms.

Dana found her way to the shower, ditching her clothes and shoes in a pile on the floor like her teen-aged brothers used to do. _And Melissa_ , she thought as she turned on the water. 

As always, thoughts of her sister produced a twinge of guilt and grief. Long ago, Dana had come to terms with the circumstances of Melissa’s death and the role Dana’s choices had unexpectedly played in it, but it didn’t stop her from feeling those things from time to time. 

Today, Dana had felt only grief, albeit misplaced, when she’d begun her autopsy on the latest victim. She knew that Mulder and the others on scene, including Skinner and SSA Stringfield, had seen her, Dana, when they’d looked at the body. Even Dana acknowledged a resemblance, but it was Melissa who’d come to mind as she examined the corpse. The victim’s red, ringlet curls, the way she wore her eye makeup had been reminiscent of Melissa. But that was where the similarities ended for Dana, thankfully. Her clinical mind had noted the similarities and then catalogued their distinct differences, allowing her to distance herself and do her work.

That’s what she told herself anyway. Her dreams told a different story.

While in Morpheus’s embrace, her subconscious mind discarded clinical differentiations between the victim and Melissa, and then herself. It put her centerstage, laid out on that dining room table, before her would-be killer whose face she knew all too well.

Donnie Pfaster. 

Dark, gleaming, empty eyes. A menacing smirk. And that voice calling her “girly girl”.

Her blood ran cold. Her skin crawled. Her mouth opened and condemned him to the pits of hell where he belonged.

He stepped between her forcibly spread thighs, her legs lashed with rope to the table legs, and leaned over her. She glared at him, refusing to look away, refusing to let him see her fear, even as he pressed the scalpel at the base of her chin. 

“Fuck you,” she spat and felt the burn and sting of the blade. 

“No,” he said with a shake of his head and smug grin, “I’m going to fuck you, girly girl.”

He was naked now and she could feel his erection. And he was hairless, no pubic hair brushed her inner thighs or tangled with hers. A glance down confirmed it. A scan upward over his body revealed him completely bald, his chest and head, even his jaw was bare of hair and whiskers. And somehow it was horrifying.  

Dana felt the press of his cock against her groin, then the searing pain of the scalpel being dragged down her torso, splitting her in two. She cried out and shouted for her partner as she watched Pfaster morph into a demon-like form and begin to gut her.

And then Mulder was there, between her and the monster, his face a mask of horror as Pfaster held his hand, which now held the scalpel, forcing him to sink the blade into her abdomen. 


	22. An Epiphany...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A shout startled Mulder from a restless, dream-riddled sleep."

A shout startled Mulder from a restless, dream-riddled sleep. 

A second shout, a clear call from his partner, had him clambering out from under the covers and reaching for his sidearm.

“Shit!” he groused, remembering she had it.

Unarmed, he bolted from his bed and yanked open the adjoining door to find Scully sitting up in her bed, wild-eyed and gasping. Covered in a sheen of sweat she looked simultaneously terrified, furious, and confused.

_A nightmare._

Empathy propelled him forward and self-preservation had him grasping her wrists when she she tried to strike him. She then used his strength to leverage herself away. She probably would have kicked him had her legs not been trapped under the covers. 

“Scully!”

Her back hit the headboard and she stilled, her eyes on him, beginning to focus beyond her dreams now.

“It’s okay,” he said, verbally coaxing her further away from the dream. “Scully, it’s me.”

He saw recognition dawn.

“Pfaster?” she asked, her breath coming in sharp pants.

“Dead,” he said with a shake of his head and watched her eyes dart about the room before fixing on a spot on the far side of the room.

 _The closet_.  _Shit._

Mulder kicked himself. He had been so wrapped up in the case and his own head that he’d failed to consider how this case might affect her, beyond how it affected him. That she’d been attacked all-too-recently by another serial killer. 

 _I should have_.

“God, Mulder,” she said, her eyes wearily drifting shut. “I had the other half of your dream.”

His heart ached and he reached for her when she began leaning toward him. He pulled her trembling form to his chest while her hands latched onto his t-shirt, holding as tightly to him as she had the day Padgett’s psychic surgeon had tried to remove her heart.

“It’s all right,” Mulder said and held her as she cried softly for a few minutes before she began slowly putting herself back together.

“It was Pfaster? In your dream?” he sought confirmation, asking the question softly as she slowly lifted her head from his shoulder.

“At first…,” her voice trailed off but her gaze locked on his and those blue depths told him all he needed to know. He instantly regretted telling her the details of his dream. If he hadn’t…

“Don’t take this on yourself,” she said, derailing his train of thought before it could gain a head of steam. “It was a dream. A product of exhaustion, stress, and the particularly gruesome nature of these murders. It’s not your fault for telling me.”

Reason and logic, compassion and absolution, all rolled up into a petite redhead who loved him for some inexplicable reason and whom he couldn’t live without.

He gently touched her cheek then tucked a stand of hair behind her ear. She wore it shorter these days and it escaped more often. He rather liked that; it gave him an excuse to touch her. 

His gaze flickered down to her mouth and he wished they were alone on this case so that he could touch her in other ways, tenderly, assuring that she was okay and that he was, too. She was no longer holding to him but she was still close enough for him to feel her warmth and smell her shampoo and the cream she put on her face at night. Her lips were bare of cosmetics and, in that moment, it was the most sensual thing he’d ever been faced with. 

He caved, tilting his head to find her mouth with his own. She let out a soft sound when his lips captured hers. The single kiss was soft and slow and lingering. Her hand came up to cradle his jaw, thumb rasping through the whiskers he’d yet to shave. 

The sound of it, the feel of it … a shiver coursed down his spine.

He reached for hers, his hand slipping around her waist and finding the small of her back. She arched toward him as his fingers pressed against the tattoo hidden by her pajama top. 

A half-second later she went stark still and pulled her mouth from his.

He started to apologize but ended up watching her instead. Her eyes were closed and she was biting her bottom lip. Her face was a mask of concentration. He recognized the look and waited while she chased down the thought that had occurred to her mid kiss. After a few moments, her eyes opened. They were alight with a certainty that always gave him a rush.

“We need to look at the autopsy photos again,” she said.

“What is it?” he asked as his mind, like a sprinter, jumped into the starting blocks and waited for the gun.

She shook her head. 

“Maybe nothing,” she said but was already crawling out of the other side of the bed and heading for her suitcase while calling over her shoulder, “Get dressed. I’ll tell you on the way over.”


	23. Hope Kindles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Walter Skinner was elbow deep in a steak sandwich when Mulder and Scully entered task force headquarters at a clipped pace."

Walter Skinner was elbow deep in a steak sandwich when Mulder and Scully entered task force headquarters at a clipped pace. Gone was the exhaustion of two hours earlier and in its place was a frenetic energy that cut through the room like a ship through water. 

Headed toward the conference room, they glanced at no one and spoke only to each other in hushed tones. Mulder was bent slightly in deference to his partner’s diminutive stature. Physically, their looked determined, purposeful, formidable even, and their eyes were positively alight with something he recognized.

_They’re onto something._

Skinner glanced at Bob Stringfield sitting across from him. The man’s eyebrows raised in question, but Skinner felt something else entirely – hope.

Wiping his mouth, he abandoned his sandwich and followed them at a distance, knowing it was best to stay out of their way for now and let them do what they do best. 

He watched them shuck their coats simultaneously onto a chair and then move to the flagged file folders. Scully picked up the first and flipped it open. Mulder stood at her shoulder and together they reviewed the contents, sifting through pictures until they found whatever it was they were looking for. 

“Here,” Scully said, pointing out something on the picture.

They did this from file to file, excitement growing as they moved from one to the next and the next and the next. They occasionally stopped to mark something with a highligher, reference another file or one of the drawings in Mulder’s notebook.

As time passed, others joined Skinner, watching the duo work, apparently oblivious to the attention they’d drawn. Robert Stringfield was at his right elbow, hands on his hips. Skinner could see his reflection in the window glass, his expression one of restrained hope.

Glancing back at his agents, Skinner watched Mulder snatch up a marker and begin writing on the series of pages taped to the back wall. Each page had a symbol and Mulder put a number beneath each, rearranging and throwing up blank pages for some numbers.

While Mulder did this, Scully moved to the board with the known cases and began writing the numbers that corresponded with the symbols.

Something unseen but palpable flowed between them and off them, and gradually affected their spellbound audience.

Skinner could feel it himself. He watched anxiously as the partners worked separately and yet in tandem. He began to notice a pattern to Scully’s numbers. They were sequential, for the most part, but like Mulder’s symbols, some numbers were missing. And the missing numbers…

A thrill went through Skinner, the kind he always got as an investigator when he was onto something potentially case-cracking. He wasn’t a man to hope and pray but he was hoping and praying right now. Then Scully stopped suddenly and his heart seized in his chest.

“There’s no photo of this one,” Scully said. 

Mulder immediately joined her as she sorted through the contents of the folder in her hand. She was  frowning and shaking her head.

“You’re sure she had one?” Mulder scowled.

Scully thumbed back through the file and found what she was looking for. “Here, under distinguishing marks,” she said, her right index finger pointing out something to Mulder. “The coroner noted it on her left breast but there’s no picture in the file.”

“Would it still be intact?”

Scully looked elsewhere on the page. “Maybe. She was buried three weeks ago. We should be able to exhume.”

Hearing that, Skinner stepped into the room.

“Agents, what have you got?”

They looked up and he watched elation skitter across Mulder’s face and Scully jaw set in resolve.

“Tattoos,” they said in unison.


	24. A Briefing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "SSA Robert Stringfield had worked dozens of cases in his years with the Bureau. He’d chased down leads from random clues left by killers and rapists and had his share of investigative epiphanies in the process. But he was certain he would never have made the leap agents Mulder and Scully had in this case and had no problem admitting it."

SSA Robert Stringfield had worked dozens of cases in his years with the Bureau. He’d chased down leads from random clues left by killers and rapists and had his share of investigative epiphanies in the process. But he was certain he would never have made the leap agents Mulder and Scully had in _this_ case and had no problem admitting it.

_Tattoos._

Each victim had a tattoo that featured one of the mystery symbols, as either a solitary character or as part of a more elaborate design. The symbol found on any given victim’s body was found at the subsequent crime scene and any other future ones, meaning each murder added exactly one symbol to the existing catalog of symbols.

Stringfield shook his head inwardly. He knew Agent Scully had discovered the commonality and then the pair of them worked out the rest, extrapolating from existing case information to construct a timeline of the murders. They had also defined an approximate number of cases that had yet to be identified as attributable to their killer. 

He could barely wrap his brain around the concept but he and A.D. Walter Skinner were going with it, letting Mulder make his trademark _spooky_ leaps while his level-headed partner kept him earthbound.

It had been exciting and baffling to witness their interactions. Mulder would throw out a theory and she would either shoot them down – or try to – or push him to consider things she felt he was overlooking or dismissing too quickly. A few times their voices had risen substantially beyond excitement to irritation, drawing the attention of everyone in the building, but it blew over quickly and they were huddling again.

Once, when they’d gotten particularly loud, Stringfield had asked Skinner if he should intervene. Walter’s answer had been to glance in the direction of his feuding agents then back at the folder in his hands with a muttered “It’s just what they do.”

Currently, the pair were clearly on the same page, briefing the rest of the agents on what they’d discovered and the revised profile. Mulder was taking the lead, sharing his thoughts as profiler, while Scully provided logistical and procedural support.

“We need to talk to friends and family members and find out where these women got their tattoos and the name of the artist or artists. If the family and friends can’t tell us, we need to check financial records looking for transactions at tattoo and piercing shops,” Scully said and was about to say more when one of the other agents in the room interrupted her.

“I thought we were looking with some guy with a medical degree. A plastic surgeon or something.”

The question came from Steven Grice, a relatively new recruit to VCS and a bit of a pain in the ass. The jury was still out on whether or not he would cut it in the division. His interruption of the briefing proved just how inexperienced he was and he was promptly chastised by Agent Scully.

“We’re looking for someone who has surgical experience or training, not necessarily a practicing physician,” Scully said in a disaffected tone that Stringfield was learning to interpret as annoyed.

“In many states, tattoo artists have to be licensed by state or country health departments,” Mulder chimed in then. “If our killer is or was a doctor, it would be easy enough for him to transition from one career to the other with little red tape.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Grice interrupted again. “Why would anyone leave a lucrative medical practice to be a tattoo artist or any other career that pays comparative peanuts–”

“Like an FBI agent?” Scully shot back, cool as ice.

The noise in the room dropped off considerably. Everyone knew she was an M.D., a lauded forensic pathologist who had shunned the big money of private practice to make _comparative peanuts_ in the Bureau. Locked away in the basement of the Hoover Building with a man most considered certifiably crazy, no less

Scully didn’t seem offended by Grice’s remark but Stringfield wasn’t so sure about Mulder. 

The man had immediately fixed Grice with a look that was at once unreadable and entirely readable, but it was Scully who delivered the smackdown, again, quietly authoritative and without sounding the least bit defensive. She just calmly looked up from the folder in her hands and fixed Grice with a gaze that perfectly mirrored her partner’s.

“Not everyone gets into medicine for a paycheck, Agent Grice. Even plastic surgeons,” she said, her blue gaze as sharp as her diction. “What Agent Mulder is saying is that we believe the killer may have worked in both fields, perhaps simultaneously, perhaps not, or he may only have an interest in tattoos and tattoo artistry. The truth is, we don’t know so we must pursue these avenues of investigation based on the profile.”

“Agent Scully is right. We have no evidence at this point that allows us to definitively say what career the killer is currently pursing, what he’s pursued in the past, or even his hobbies,” Mulder spoke up again. “We know what the available physical evidence suggests: that the killer possesses the skill level of a practicing physician and has at least knowledge of the tattoos on the victims’ bodies.”

As the briefing continued, Mulder and Scully concisely covered the case to date, point-by-point, reiterating what needed to be reiterated and revealing new thoughts and theories. They swapped the lead back and forth seamlessly, without sharing so much as a glance for reassurance. 

Stringfield envied their rapport, the ease with which they worked together, showing no evidence they’d disagreed on anything earlier. No egos had been bruised. No wounds inflicted. They had emerged from their arguments in perfect sync. Stringfield was impressed. More than, and began to understand why Walter ignored the rumors that surrounded the duo. Whatever they had between them, it wasn’t detrimental to their work; if anything, it seemed to fuel it.

Of course, that was probably part of what fed the rumor mill. But Stringfield didn’t give a damn about what people had said, were saying, or would say from here forward. They were doing exceptional work on this case and he wouldn’t dream of disrupting the balance they’d struck.

As Agent Mulder wrapped up the briefing, Stringfield moved to stand alongside him. He surveyed the agents present and began his part.

“While we may not know everything yet, we _are_ a step closer in finding this guy thanks to everyone’s efforts,” he said, then steeled himself to break a bit of news that might not set well. 

“At this point, I would normally pair you up to canvas,” he began, “but agents Mulder and Scully are going to take on that particular burden alone.” The grumbling began almost immediately but Stringfield didn’t give them time to dwell on it. “I know it’s not what you want to hear but it makes sense, folks. We’ve got an active killer in an incredibly small, rural community where gossip is a way of life. If we dispatch groups of agents across town and out into the county, asking about tattoos and artists, we’re liable to tip our hand and we can’t afford that.”

“Agents Tomlinson and Westinghouse will be flying to Memphis to see what more they can learn about the cases there. The rest of us are going to canvas long distance, calling law agencies who worked previous cases and the family members and friends of previous victims. We’re also going to continue to search the case files in the conference room looking for other possible victims and any other information we can turn up,” he said. “There’s a lot to do and we’re going to leave no stone unturned.”

At Stringfield’s words, the most senior agents present began nodding their agreement and he felt a rush of energy, believing their commitment would carry the day. Stringfield glanced at Skinner, who stepped up now and surveyed the room, his gaze every bit that of a shrewd and menacing hawk.

“One more thing before you take up your assignments,” Skinner said, drawing all attention to him. “It should go without saying but let’s make it clear that no one, and I mean absolutely no one talks to the media about this case. Not so much as a word,” he said, his words carrying an undercurrent of threat. “Right now, the best thing we have going for us is that the killer has no clue we’ve figured out the tattoo connection. He thinks we’re idiots. I’d like to keep it that way until we catch his ass.”

Stringfield wholeheartedly agreed.


	25. Serving Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was dead before he hit the floor....

He was dead before he hit the floor. The bullet passed through his jugular like a hot blade through warm butter. A crimson arterial spray instantly announced the fatal nature of the wound. 

The killer had been mid-cut when Dana and Mulder broke through the front door. She had taken aim immediately while Mulder rushed the killer, intent on distancing him from the victim. Mulder had succeeded but lost his footing in the struggle and fell to one knee, leaving him exposed to the killer’s blade. Seeing the man raise the scalpel and begin a downward slash toward Mulder’s neck, she fired without hesitation.

Several paces away, Dana remained untouched by the gore but not Mulder or the woman gagged and strapped to the table nearby. The victim's torso bore a fresh incision running from chin to navel, which was beginning to gape open as she struggled against her bonds. 

Her nostrils now burning with the scent of gunpowder, Dana lowered her weapon and met Mulder’s gaze. She shook her head at his worried expression then moved to help the woman screaming hysterically into the saliva-soaked gag. Mulder fell into step behind her, already on the phone with Skinner, requesting an ambulance and giving their location. 

“I’m a medical doctor. I'm going to help but you need to be as still as you can,” Dana said, catching the woman’s wild gaze. To Dana’s relief, the woman indicated her understanding with the barest of nods. 

“That’s good,” Dana consoled her and left Mulder to carefully remove the gag while she began inspecting the incision.

_Through camper’s fascia. Through Scarpa's fascia. Frighteningly precise. Astonishingly so considering it had been made on a conscious person._

The woman groaned in agony once the gag was out of her mouth. Dana could not even imagine what she was feeling. She wished she had something to give her for pain as blood began pooling in earnest along the unnatural seam. She needed to act fast to keep the woman alive long enough for the ambulance to arrive.

Dana glanced up at her partner to find him watching her, waiting for instructions. She would kiss him if she could.

“I need any sort of first aid supplies you can find, Mulder. Check the bathroom. And bring back any clean towels. Quickly.”

He moved quickly and she heard him seconds later rummaging through cabinets.

Dana glanced at the man lying on the floor, a shimmering pool of blood spreading beneath his corpse. He was undoubtedly who they’d been looking for and yet they didn’t even know his name. She had noticed him several times over the last few days, from a distance, as they interviewed locals. He’d been difficult to miss. The right side of his face was terribly scarred, from burns, likely from years earlier, and from apparent surgical attempts to repair the damage. Each time she’d seen him, he’d seemed unaware of her and Mulder’s presence. He had appeared to all intents and purposes a man just going about his job, hauling equipment in and out of a commercial van.

The van, emblazoned with a surprisingly sophisticated logo for Jimmy’s Carpet Cleaning was the reason she and Mulder were currently in the home of Linda Smythe.

They had interviewed Ms. Smythe earlier in the day. She’d been friends with the most recent victim, Karen Sullivan. The women had met several years earlier at one of the local bars and formed a fast friendship. According to family members, Ms. Sullivan and Ms. Smythe got their first tattoos at the same time.

During the interview, Ms. Smythe hadn’t been able to provide anything particularly helpful to the case. She did, however, confirm that the women had driven to Raleigh with several other friends for a girls’ weekend and, while there, they’d all gotten tattoos. Ms. Smythe had pointedly told Dana and Mulder that she lived alone and did not bring men home from bars or anywhere else, and hadn’t in years. And certainly not since the second killing.

“I still can’t believe it. I thought these kinds of things only happened in big cities,” Ms. Smythe had said as she reached for a nearly empty pack of cigarettes that lay next to an overflowing ashtray … an ashtray that sat atop a rickety end table, which sat unevenly on linoleum. Cheap, scuffed, and nicotine-stained linoleum flooring that went throughout the house, including the bedroom, which Dana had noted when using the woman’s bathroom. 

Which made a carpet cleaning service van parked next to the house out of place. 

Ms. Smythe had absolutely no need for carpet cleaning. She lived alone, wasn’t dating, and had stated earlier that she had no plans for the evening beyond coloring her hair with a box kit from the local pharmacy and painting her nails an especially bright shade of blue. 

Dana and Mulder had spotted the van simultaneously and exchanged a quick glance before Mulder stopped the car in the highway, made a U-turn, and drove them back. Now the killer was dead and Ms. Smythe was bleeding out. 

Dana felt helpless to stop it, the threadbare towel Mulder brought from the bathroom was quickly reaching capacity and the blood flowing faster. She didn’t dare try holding the wound closed. Even with Mulder’s help, the incision was too long to close it thoroughly and they would probably cause more damage in the effort. 

Linda Smythe was in a fight for her life and losing it. 

“Mulder, what’s the ETA on that ambulance?” Dana asked as Ms. Smythe lost consciousness. “We need to get her to the hospital now or we’re going to lose her.”

He dialed 911 again while she rummaged through the first aid kit he’d found, looking for anything that might help. But there was nothing. 

Dana listened to Mulder speak, his tone urgent then quickly turning frustrated. She looked at him, her worry increasing exponentially at seeing his expression.

“What’s wrong?”

He covered the mic of the phone with his hand.

“All emergency units are out on other calls, opposite ends of the county. ETA is 30 minutes at least,” he said, then asked, “Can we move her?”

Dana’s stomach sank to somewhere around her toes and she cursed the limitations of rural emergency services.  

“We shouldn’t,” she told Mulder, “But if they can’t get here, we have to. She’ll be lucky to make it as it is.”

Mulder told the dispatcher their plans and requested an officer meet them somewhere along the way to provide a lights-and-sirens escort to the hospital. 

Dana’s brain kicked into overdrive. If they were going to move the woman, they needed some way to stabilize the wound. The rural roads were uneven and bumpy with snaking curves.

“Find some sort of heavy tape and get a bedsheet,” she said as soon as Mulder disconnected the call. He again moved swiftly into the bowels of the house while she sought out the kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers until she found what she was looking for – plastic wrap. It could be pulled tighter than the sheet and would at least partially shield the wound from debris or other agents of infection.

She met up with Mulder again. Together, they ripped the sheet into strips then carefully but quickly wrapped the woman’s still and increasingly pale form in the plastic wrap. They secured it with several bands of duct tape then the strips of dingy, once-white percale. 

Dana compulsively checked the victim’s vitals as they worked in tandem and she kept her finger on Ms. Smythe’s frighteningly faint pulse as Mulder lifted and carried the woman to their car. Together, they positioned the woman in the back seat and Dana shoved the passenger seat forward to crouch in the footwell. 

Behind the wheel, Mulder cranked the car, threw it into gear, and raced them to the hospital at breakneck speed.


	26. The Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her hand was trembling....

Her hand was trembling. 

It had been two hours since she’d relinquished her iron grip on the bindings she and Mulder had wrapped Linda Smythe in. Two hours since he’d careened their Bureau rental sedan along the dark, ribbon-like highway to the Chatham County Hospital. Two hours since they delivered Ms. Smythe into the care of the emergency doctors and nurses. 

Two hours. Plenty of time for the muscles and tendons and nerves to regroup from the strain. And yet her hand was still shaking.

Neurogenic tremors, she concluded reluctantly and even more reluctantly admitted to a profound sense of disconnection that meant only one thing to a medical or psychiatric professional: traumatic stress response. 

She supposed it was inevitable. She’d killed a man tonight, the third in as many months, less in fact. 

Three men. All had taken a life or lives. All some permutation of evil or purveyor of evil acts. Two of them would have mostly likely taken Mulder’s life if she hadn’t been present. One would have taken her own had Mulder not arrived at the perfect moment. All of them had been ended by a bullet from her gun, their lives taken by her hand.

The hand that wouldn’t stop shaking.

Mulder was back at the crime scene now with the rest of the task force and local officials, giving his account of events and leaving her to oversee the victim’s care. She had no status in this place. She wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in the State of North Carolina. But she was a doctor and the staff remembered she had tended Mulder here not so many days ago.

Mulder.

If she had hesitated for a half-second, even a hundredth of a second, there was a high probability he would be dead now. If the killer had succeeded in driving the scalpel home, her partner could have bled out on the floor of Linda Smythe’s home, his blood mingling with the assailant's. Or she might have been forced to choose between saving Mulder's life and Ms. Smythe’s, an all-too-possible scenario that she did not want to contemplate. But not the killer, he would be dead. Her aim would have been true and justice served regardless.

Justice _was_  served. And yet her hand would not stop shaking.

No matter how many times she clenched and unclenched her fingers. No matter how many slow, deep breaths she took. No matter how many times she closed her eyes and told herself she had done the right thing, and believed she had, her hand still shook.

The deputy who’d given them a lights-and-sirens escort to the hospital had told them they should be proud and happy they "took the guy out”. The bright-eyed young man had beamed almost joyously, but there was nothing joyful about tonight for Dana. 

All she felt was relief. Relief that Mulder was alive and unharmed. Relief that there would be no more deaths caused by this killer. And yet, her relief was dulled and muted. 

From exhaustion or out of necessity? Was it the result of killing three men or too many days of stress and not enough sleep? The mind could take a vacation against the will of the owner, distance itself from things it didn’t want or wasn’t ready to deal with. 

Dana felt depleted on all but the most basic levels. Not hollow or empty but discharged, like a battery, and not just emotionally. If she didn’t rest soon, she’d be teetering on the edge between feeling nothing at all and feeling entirely too much.

And her damned hand was still shaking.

Dana tried to ignore it and gripped the medical chart tighter in her left hand. She read over the vitals of Linda Smythe. It was the fourth time she’d tried and it was frustrating the hell out of her that she couldn’t seem to focus long enough to complete an assessment. She was glad there were other doctors, skilled nurses, and technicians on hand to actually take care of the patient now.

Ms. Smythe had lost most of her blood volume by the time they arrived. The fleet sedan was going to require a deep cleaning or it was going to be relegated to a scrap heap. The backseat looked like the scene of particularly gruesome crime, and she supposed it was by proxy. It would have been a lot worse if they hadn’t bound the victim, who would have certainly died had she and Mulder not risked the drive. A few seconds later in breaching her home, and she’d have had no chance at all.

It had been close. Too close. And Mulder...

“Scully?” His voice was soft, almost intimate and she felt a tension drain out of her that she hadn’t even been aware of. 

Dana closed up the chart and returned it to the tray beside the ICU bed then joined her partner, who stood just inside the room. His gaze strayed from hers to the patient when Dana reached his side. She looked, too, eyes taking in the woman’s parlor – still pale but no longer ashen. The monitors showed significantly lower than normal heart rate, but it was steady, as was her respiration, both due to the heavy sedation the senior ER physician had prescribed. It was a necessary to prevent any movement that might tear open the near lethal wound. 

“She gonna make it?” Mulder asked. 

“Maybe,” she told him then felt his fingers briefly brush the back of her arm until his fingers found her trembling ones.

She involuntarily flinched at the touch, which he allowed to linger only a moment. She looked up at him, saw compassion and warmth and worry. She appreciated his concern but she wasn’t ready for the consequences of allowing him to comfort her. The emotional numbness was fading in his presence. 

Dana straightened her shoulders and gave a little shake of her head. He nodded as if he understood. She didn’t know if he did or not but was grateful he wasn’t going to push the issue.

“I’m okay,” she said, her gaze dropping to where the killer had intended to bury his scalpel. His cheek and neck were still speckled with dried blood, a distinctly macabre version of freckles.

She frowned at the sight and at seeing the dried blood all over his jacket. The beautiful, butter-soft black leather was probably ruined. His navy blue sweater was certainly a lost cause, and probably the t-shirt beneath. The collar of the sweater was significantly darker than it had been. And wet. 

_It shouldn’t still be wet._

“Mulder, did he nick you?” she asked, feeling a rush of worry and cursing how it shook her out of the malaise of moments ago. She didn’t think the killer had gotten that close to him. But it was the opposite side. It might have happened when Mulder first rushed him.

“I don’t think so,” he said as she turned to him.

Her fingers automatically sought out the injury, slipping beneath the jacket lapel and gently palpating the dark, glistening spot that was just peeking out. He winced when she found the source at the center. 

“Are you feeling lightheaded, weak?” she asked.

He shook his head and she felt that wave of relief again.

“Come on,” she said and led him out of the room to the nurse’s station. The helpful charge nurse from the week before took one look at her expression and the blood on her hands and pointed to the next bay over.

“I’ll bring his chart.”

Dana thanked her and took Mulder to the empty ICU bay indicated. She had him sit on the gurney then carefully helped him out of his jacket. He grunted but didn’t complain when they rid him of the sweater and the once-white t-shirt beneath. She frowned seeing an oozing wound just above his clavicle. It didn’t look deep and had obviously missed the trapezius or he would be in a lot more pain. Still, the scalpel had hit a vein if it was still leaking. From the blood stains on his skin, dry in some places, she suspected it was an intermittent bleed.

She looked up at him and saw him looking over his jacket, which lay beside him. She looked, too, and saw what had clearly caught his eye. A smooth slit of a puncture in the leather of his jacket, at the yoke seam. That’s why she hadn’t noticed it in the dimmed light of the other room.

“Stay still,” she told him and went over to the sink in the corner of the room. She thoroughly washed her hands, dried them on a sterilized towel from the dispenser next to the sink. She then procured the supplies cart, pulling it around to where she could treat him.

She felt his eyes on her as she gloved up and knew they didn’t leave her as she cleaned and examined the wound closely. She knew he was worried, not about his injury, but her. He always worried about her. She always worried about him. 

 _We both have good reason, all-too often_ , she thought.

“Will I live?” he teased after she finished stitching him up, prompting her to cut him a look of annoyance. It was _so_ him. So him, to crack that joke, trying to lift her spirits, but she didn’t think this one was funny on any level.

“Don’t,” she said. “Please. Not tonight.”

His brow creased into a deep frown and his gaze sobered exponentially. He brought his hand up to touch her cheek and she felt his apology in it. It was a remarkably intimate touch that made her right hand tremble again, along with rest of her.

Fox Mulder could be a total jerk at times, but he was also the most tender man she’d ever known. So much kindness and compassion for strangers, even more for her when his head wasn’t up his ass. She hadn’t always appreciated his emotional generosity, knew there were times she still didn’t, but she adored him for it.

Dana looked at his wound again and felt a rush of emotion, the kind that threatened her control. She tamped it down furiously and reached for the exhaustion just beyond. She focused on the need for a hot shower, a warm bed, soft sheets, hours and hours and hours of interrupted sleep.

With Mulder. Skin to skin. Spooning.

She wondered not for the first time how in the hell they’d made it so far into their partnership without indulging in that, especially after particularly harrowing cases and so many – too many – close calls. She wished they could indulge tonight, just shut out the world and rest and forget the horrors of the last few days, those of years past, and of mere hours ago.

She wondered if this killer would visit her in her nightmares, too, joining the likes of Donnie Pfaster and the faceless men who had medically raped her body, gave her cancer, and took away her chance at motherhood. She shut her eyes and saw him there and it made her beyond weary.

“I’m tired, Mulder,” she whispered and felt his hand gently slip to her neck. He drew her the few inches to him and she rested her head against his good shoulder. The one that bore the scar she’d given him … with a bullet from her gun. 

Dana wanted to kiss it. She wanted to touch it and say she was sorry for what would probably be the millionth time, spoken and unspoken. 


	27. Eavesdropping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skinner glanced over his shoulder and looked at the agents sound asleep in the back seat...

Skinner glanced over his shoulder and looked at the agents sound asleep in the back seat.

He wasn’t surprised they’d nodded off. The entire task force had been fueled by coffee for the last two weeks. Everyone had been losing steam and in desperate need of a break, but Mulder and Scully’d had a particularly rough go of it. Between Mulder’s established psychological issues with this type of case and Scully’s constant alertness to her partner’s wellbeing… Well, they hadn’t really gotten a break in all of it, and tonight…

Skinner should have known they’d stumble across the killer. It was the sort of thing that happened with them. They’d see something that caught their eye, some clue anyone else might have missed, especially at the end of a long day, and put it all together in the blink of said eye, just in the nick of time. 

A van. A goddamned van. 

“She had no carpet in her home and the linoleum hadn’t been buffed in ages,” that’s what Scully had said when asked what was so suspicious about seeing the van of a local carpet cleaning service in Linda Smythe’s driveway. The pair had made the logical deduction and then acted, and probably saved a woman’s life in the process. 

Stable but critical, Ms. Smythe would be medevacked to Raleigh as soon as doctors felt it safe to move her. The little county hospital lacked the specialized staff and equipment for the additional care she would need if she survived. 

Scully was relatively hopeful about the outcome but Skinner was worried about his agent. She hid her feelings well, to the point she was impossible to read at times. That was a skill she’d gained and honed over the years with Mulder. To protect him and herself, and them, from forces within and without the Bureau. They’d been pawns too many times, had more brushes with death than any other agents in the history of the FBI. He wondered when their numbers would finally be up, when those who toyed with their lives would decide they were no longer of use and end them permanently.

Not for the first time, Skinner wondered why they continued the fight.

Later that night, Skinner woke to the sound of their voices. They weren’t loud but just loud enough for him to hear them talking through the partially open, adjoining door.

“I want to call in my marker from Florida.”

 _Scully._ Her voice carrying far more emotion than Skinner was accustomed to hearing from her unless she was angry.

“You don’t want to see the case through?” Mulder asked, his confusion and worry clear.

“Of course I do,” she replied. “But I’ve killed three men in a matter of months, Mulder."

“You did your job, Scully. You shouldn’t feel guilty–” Mulder began but she cut him off.

“I don’t feel guilty.” She sounded exasperated. “I know I did my job. But I am also responsible for ending three lives. Three, Mulder.”

“They had it coming, Scully.”

“ _Yes_ , but I’m not just an FBI agent, Mulder. I’m a doctor, too, and I took an oath to do no harm, to save lives not to take them, and whether or not these men deserved, it doesn’t change that fact.”

Skinner frowned. Scully was too smart to have not understood that when she joined the Bureau, as a field agent, she might find herself in a position where she'd have to act in direct counter to her physician's oath. She’d–

“You _have_ saved lives, Scully. You saved Linda Smythe’s, Alexander Kelly’s, yourself and any number of women and children those men would have targeted had you not taken them down,” Mulder said. “And you’ve saved my life. Twice.”

“I know, Mulder–" Scully began but Mulder cut her off. 

“Is that really what this is about, Scully? Taking down those men…"

“What do mean?” Scully sounded exasperated again but Mulder’s answer was tentative and his voice so low Skinner could only make out a couple words distinctly: “IVF” and “failed.”

_Scully was trying to get pregnant? Had tried? And Mulder knew?_

_Of course Mulder knows_ , Skinner sighed. He doubted the partners had anything by way of real secrets between them. Still…

“This has nothing to do with that,” came Scully’s voice, probably much louder than she'd intended. It interrupted Skinner’s thoughts and made him glad her room didn't share a wall with any of those occupied by other agents. The walls were paper thin. “But thank you for reminding me,” she continued.

Skinner recoiled at the hurt he heard from her now and felt like an absolute asshole for eavesdropping.

“Scully, I want… I need to know that…” 

Mulder sounded miserable as his voice trailed off and, typical Scully, she threw him a lifeline.

“I know, Mulder. And yes, I still grieve. Yes, it still hurts that I will never be a mother, and it probably always will,” she said, her voice softer now, consoling, “But  _this_  is by circumstance and necessity separate. Just because I didn’t take leave then doesn’t connect it to now.”

“How do you know?” It was a genuine question.

“Because it’s different. Because it’s removed from me. It’s not personal in any way other than my profound relief that you’re alive and relatively unharmed. The other, Mulder, is deeply personal and painful and of all people, you should understand that.”

 _Yeah, he should_ , thought Skinner. Mulder had been carrying around the emotional baggage of his sister’s disappearance for decades. It had affected every part of his life, and Scully’s.

Skinner heard a movement, the tell-tale squeak of the crappy mattresses in this place. Someone standing up. Probably Mulder. Then he heard a pair of loud, pained sighs, in unison.

“I’m sorry, Scully.” The words were said with undeniable tenderness, and in surrender. Mulder’s surrender.

“It’s not your fault, Mulder. None of it is. It’s just the hand I’ve been dealt.”

“ _We’ve_  been dealt, Scully,” Mulder corrected, his tone matching Scully’s. “We’re in this boat together, even if you need me to take both oars for a while. You’ve earned a little shore leave.”

Skinner thought he heard an amused sound come from Scully but he couldn’t help but think she’d earned more than a _little_ time off. That they both had. They rarely took it, though, which is why Scully’s requesting leave before he could order it had shocked the hell out of him. She’d looked up at him earnestly but as veiled as ever when she told him she’d be putting in for two weeks and scheduling an appointment with Karen Kosseff.

Wearing a hospital scrub shirt and holding a bag of his bloodied belongings, Mulder had waited for her to finish speaking before informing Skinner that he’d take care of the paperwork and Scully would head out in a few days, after they gathered and organized their notes. 

If Scully’s plans hadn’t been shocking enough, Mulder’s volunteering to do paperwork was enough to make Skinner's head spin. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Scully did the paperwork – or at least most of it. She was better at it, diligent, whereas Mulder procrastinated if left on his own. Skinner usually counted himself lucky to see financial reports from Mulder by the end of the fiscal year for cases investigated in January. 

“I know,” Scully said now, her voice barely carrying to Skinner’s ears but free of veil, her emotions unrestricted. “But I need time and distance from here, Mulder, from this case, from everything.”

Mulder said something Skinner couldn’t make out and Scully responded, their conversation fading to murmurs. They talked for a little longer while he castigated himself for listening to them at all, for not getting up and closing the door, for not at least trying to tune them out.

They had clearly thought him asleep – or maybe Mulder hadn’t heard him come back. The agent hadn’t stirred when Skinner'd turned in. Maybe he’d finally started resting again. Or maybe Skinner had slept through a nightmare, Mulder’s or Scully’s. 

Not so long ago, Skinner had found himself consciously rooting for them to find some peace together, and he still wanted that for them. He believed they deserved a break. That they deserved more than they’d gotten out of life, period. They’d paid prices that would have had most people, sensible people, calling it quits and disappearing into the proverbial woodwork to try and live quiet normal lives. In recent years, he’d thought maybe they might just do that one day and considering what he’d just heard, he thought that maybe they had already begun planning it.

_A child._

Skinner couldn’t imagine anything being more life-altering than bringing a child into the world, much less Mulder and Scully’s world. It would either be a blessing or foolhardy. And apparently a miracle.

_I will never be a mother._

Replaying those words in his mind grieved Skinner, but hearing the tell-tale smacking of lips in a kiss decidedly not that of friends or colleagues gave him a little bit of hope.

If he were a praying man, he’d offer up prayers for their peace. But he wasn’t. So he vowed to watch their backs best he could and hope that it would be enough to give them the chance at something more than chasing monsters and fighting conspiracies.

They’d earned it.


	28. The Profile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They put a name to the face, a history to the name, and his “death diary” named his victims.
> 
>    
> Content Warning: This part contains graphic descriptions of sexual situations.

James “Jimmy” Paul Hunter.

They put a name to the face, a history to the name, and his “death diary” named his victims.

Fourteen total. Fourteen lives lost because of brokenness. Because of an inner darkness conceived in a hornet’s nest of abuse and neglect and nurtured by a series of life’s blows to ego and vanity. The darkness had stewed, just waiting for the right trigger to be spill out into the world. Only professional success had kept it bay. And then that had been lost.

He’d made it out of the trailer park, survived the dozens of abusive, would-be stepfathers his alcoholic  mother brought home. He’d made it out of the hellhole of his childhood, all the way to medical school on his own. Academic success and _GQ_ good looks had given birth to a high-earning, high-profile career in cosmetic surgery. He’d been plastic surgeon to the ultra-rich and already-beautiful people of Hollywood and the opulent suburbs of the City of Angels. 

His downward spiral began with a chance encounter with his mother at a party, an unlikely companion of one of his outer social circle. She’d freely admitted being there for the free booze and the promise of wild times after. Embarrassed and shamed, having thought he’d escaped her reach, Hunter had left the gathering in a rage and ended up wrapping his silver Corvette around a tree not a mile away. The fire from the crash cemented his perceived downfall, leaving him physically disfigured. The failed surgeries to correct the damage had left him without a career.

Who wanted a plastic surgeon who looked like Frankenstein? Certainly not the vain. Certainly not men and women who depended on the vain to stock away their millions. He was an eyesore, one that would keep them from the latest designer fashions and ludicrously expensive cars and homes.

Tattoos were his mother’s fetish, after booze and sex. They became his fixation. Women with them. Women who spurned him. Women who looked no further than the scars on his face, who reacted with revulsion and distaste. They became his victims. 

From Los Angeles to Chicago to Memphis to backwater North Carolina, he’d taken the lives of women who rejected him. But only those with tattoos; others had come away unscathed.

In his diary, Hunter wrote that he saw tattoos as symbols of his mother's cheapness, of money spent on vanity at the expense of her child. He resented her rejection of him in favor of the truly hideous men who abused them both.

Vanity was at the root of Hunter’s psychopathy. The normal longing of a neglected child for the pure, unconditional love of a mother had become intertwined with his own attractiveness and ego. 

Attempts at a normal life and relationships after the accident had ended in failure. The woman he had thought loved him, back in Los Angeles, had left him shortly after the final corrective surgery. He’d connected his disfigurement with her rejection, although she insisted in interviews that she had been planning to leave him before. But none of that could have possibly made sense to him at the time. It was him, his face, his loss, his mother’s final cruelty to rob him of his present and future, just as she had his childhood.

Sixty-two year old Marilyn Hunter was his first victim. The first symbol carved into her abdomen, above the womb she’d carried him in. It had been her next planned tattoo.

In his journal, he described the power he'd felt while stalking her. He devoted page after page to his rage, unrelenting vile and venomous words for the woman who had routinely and publicly shamed him, who he blamed for everything he’d lost. He had started with nothing and he had ended with nothing because of her. He was a monster because of her.

Her death at his hands had elated him, he’d written. But a few pages later, a matter of days, he had clearly begun sliding again into his own personal hell, flailing in an ocean of self-loathing and self-pity. The descent had reignited his rage and led him to kill again, his victim an unsuspecting woman at a bar with friends. Rejection equalled rage equalled desecration and death – if she had a tattoo.

His surgical skills which had been a point of pride, quickly became so again as he killed. He wrote of how empowering it felt to cut into flesh again, to carve and painstakingly dissect until his victims were a work of art. His confidence had grown with each crime, which only fueled the desire to kill again. His victims became more than ones of opportunity. He began “hunting” his prey, seeking out the women who reminded him of his mother. He would follow them for days, weeks even, until he couldn’t contain the urge any longer. Then he’d strike and catalog every detail with a surgeon’s eye. He took photographs, he sketched, he took notes. 

The diary was a gruesome read but Fox Mulder read every word and examined every picture. He processed and profiled as he read every single, gory detail and sickening thought the killer put to paper. He’d puked from time to time. He'd drank more than a few beers and downed more than a few shots of whiskey with Skinner and SSA Stringfield, who were reading them, too.

Scully had departed six days earlier, turning the reins of their part of the investigation over to him. He missed her but he was glad she wasn’t here to read these things. He didn’t want them in her head. It was bad enough they were in his head, and Skinner’s.

She called him every night, making sure he was sleeping, her worry palpable through the connection. He’d assured her he was and that the nightmares were fading. They were different at least, no longer involving her as the victim.

With a sigh, Mulder closed up the diary where it sat atop the table in his room. He had finished reading Hunter's final words hours ago and had been staring into space for some time – he couldn’t say exactly how long. Taking off his glasses, he ran his hand over his face, an outward gesture of what he tried to do inside – wipe away the horrific images. He didn’t want any images to replace them just yet. He just wanted a clean slate that he could consciously fill when he was ready. It wasn’t really helpful but that wasn’t really a surprise.

Scully had retreated to process all the shit of recent weeks and he needed to do the same, although he preferred to do it when she was within arm’s reach – or at least at the other end of a couch. He had felt her absence more keenly than ever before the last few days. She was his perfect partner, in bed and out, and that scientific mind of hers was as attractive to him as the rest of her, even when she frustrated him to no end. He wanted to hear her thoughts on what they’d learned, but he wouldn’t disturb her with the details just yet, not when she hadn’t asked for them.

Standing Mulder stretched his arms up and pushed up on to his toes then tilted his head side to side until several vertebrae popped audibly.  Relief followed. His eyes sought out the window and the sad, little pool he and Scully had sat beside the night they’d arrived here. Skinner was out there now, nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels and looking up at the sky. He’d left a bit ago, taking the name of Scully’s god in vain before leaving the room. Mulder sometimes considered him more a friend than a boss and decided Skinner could probably use some company.

Mulder took a leak then joined the big, balding man, taking the whiskey when Skinner offered him the bottle. He took a swig in commiseration then handed it back. Whiskey was rarely his drink of choice but he appreciated the cleansing heat of it.

Scully would have taken a drink were she here, he thought, dropping down onto the lounger. It was the one Scully had occupied that night. He recalled their conversation, learning that she was a secret smoker and that she was questioning the reason people brought children into a world with so many monsters of the human variety.

After reading Hunter’s journals, Mulder wondered, too. He also wondered if she’d indulged in a few cigarettes in the tiny beach house that she’d rented up in Maine. He hadn’t been surprised she’d chosen the oceanside to retreat to, but he was curious as to why not somewhere warmer. He would ask her if had a chance. 

Looking up at the stars, Mulder wondered what she was doing right now. It was two in the morning. He hoped she was sleeping a dreamless sleep, or dreaming of him, and wondered if it was his own vanity speaking or if it was the universal expression of human beings' need to know they mattered to someone. 

James “Jimmy” Paul Hunter hadn’t mattered to his mother, not in any normal sense, and that had undoubtedly played a part in his becoming a serial killer. It was on every damned page of his journal, a feral cry for someone to give a shit about him. He’d been screaming it since he was a boy, which was something Mulder could understand.

While his mother had never been a bar fly and his father had never beat him or her, Mulder had been left to his own devices after Samantha was taken. He knew the emptiness of longing for parental affection and approval, what it was like to know it was just out of reach. Sadly, for Hunter and his victims, it hadn’t even been on the shelf. 

"Is that shit worse than what you see in your dreams?”

Skinner asked, interrupting Mulder’s thoughts. His boss's voice was rougher than normal, likely a result of emotional distress more than the whiskey.

“Yeah,” Mulder answered honestly. There was something about knowing the motivations that only added to the horror for him. Knowing it was a choice and not the result of true madness, was always more disturbing. Madness couldn’t necessarily be helped but free will… 

“Fuck,” Skinner muttered and took another swallow from the black-labeled bottle. He swore again as he wiped his mouth, then, “You know, I’ve worked a lot of homicide cases, violent and brutal crimes, but this… How do you get this shit out of your head when you’re done?”

Mulder didn’t know. He had no method, no tried and true way of doing things that would rid him of the demons that had dogged not only him, but the killer.

“Time” was the best answer he had, which made Skinner swear again.

“I take it getting blind drunk doesn’t help,” Skinner said and offered the bottle again. 

Mulder declined the drink. “Not really,” he said, even though he knew it wouldn’t console his boss.

“You tell Scully yet?” Skinner asked.

Mulder met his gaze. The big man had been looking at him differently of late but he hadn’t asked why.

“I’ll email her tomorrow,” he said. “She can read it when she’s ready.”

“No reason she should have a sleepless night, too,” Skinner said before draining the last of the whiskey. He winced as the liquor traveled to his stomach then stood with a groan. “I’m gonna go take the longest, hottest shower of my life and use up all the soap."

Mulder was considering the same and found himself wondering how big the motel's hot water heater was. He and Scully hadn’t had a chance to find out. 

The night before she’d left, they had showered separately even though Skinner had moved to one of the other rooms vacated by the agents who'd returned to their field offices. They’d turned in separately, too, but she’d come to him in the night, body bare of clothing, and stirred him to wakefulness with kisses both loving and fevered. Her skin had been hot against his, her mouth possessive, her pussy unbelievably wet. He’d moaned when she mounted him without preamble, without his hand ever touching her sex to gauge her readiness. She’d known she was ready and as soon as he was hard enough, accepting his entire length on a single, smooth descent. No pause. No adjustment. She’d just swallowed him up and rode him in the early hours of the morning. 

It had been a gentle, sensual fucking. Whispers of his name, soft urgent breaths, whimpers gasped into the air when she leaned back and braced her hands on his knees. He’d watched her undulate over him, her pelvis roll against his, watched her swollen sex accept him as deep as she could in that position. When she decided it wasn’t enough, that she needed more, she’d commanded him to fuck her, to give her every inch of his cock. 

“Fuck me, Mulder,” she’d breathed as she leaned over him, blue eyes sparking with lust, “I want all of you in me.”

He had responded immediately, rolling her off him and helping her onto her hands and knees. He’d fucked her like that for a while then pulled her up to him, her back to his chest. Hands grasping her inner thighs, he'd held her wide as he drilled his dick up into her. She’d held to his hands the first few strokes then reached up and back to sink her fingers into his hair. She’d pulled him to her when she twisted and tilted her head to give him access to her mouth.

They’d kissed and, God, fucked and fucked and fucked. They’d had to bite their lips to keep from crying out from the pure pleasure of it. He’d squeezed her tits, he’d pulled and pinched her nipples, he’d bent her forward and pressed a hand between her shoulder blades, holding her in place as he fucked her with firm, deliberate strokes meant to take her over the edge. She’d surrendered and let him drive them both to oblivion.

She hadn’t wanted to leave without them being together and more than once since that night, Mulder had found himself thankful he hadn’t started reading the damned journal before she’d left. He wouldn’t have gotten an erection that night if he had. He certainly hadn’t since and he hadn’t felt like trying to coax one. It seemed wrong somehow to jerk off with that shit fresh in his mind. He had a kink or two, would confess to having very adult fantasies of taking Scully so hard her teeth rattled, but he wasn’t a sexual sadist and had no desire to actually hurt her, cause her pain, or frighten her. If anything, reading the rantings of a brutal killer made him want to make love to her in the most tender ways imaginable. To kiss her and glide his hands over her smooth skin, to show her how much he loved and cherished her body. She was so much better than he deserved and yet he could not refuse what she offered him. Tonight, if she were here, he’d want to hold her, just hold her and bask in the fact she was alive and unharmed and in his arms.

“Hey, Mulder.”

Mulder stirred again from his thoughts and looked over at Skinner. The big man stood halfway to the hotel, by the trash can at the corner of the pool area. He looked pained.

“I know Scully wouldn’t want to hear it, but I’m glad she killed that piece of shit.”

Skinner didn’t wait for him to respond. He just tossed the empty bottle in the garbage and continued his journey toward the hotel. 

Mulder took the same path a few minutes later, agreeing with Skinner that the world was better without James “Jimmy” Paul Hunter in it. He just wished it hadn’t fallen to Scully to take him down. It shouldn’t be her burden to bear. She already carried more than her fair share. He would take them all for her if he could.

With a sigh, he entered his room, shed his clothes, and carefully removed the bandage over the wound on his shoulder. He examined it in the bathroom mirror. Before she’d left, Scully had said it was healing nicely. Then she’d told him not to take long showers. “Give it a few more days,” she’d said. “And dry it immediately once you’re out.”

He’d known what she was going to say before she said it. He’d been hurt too many times to not know how to tend some types of injuries. But he’d let her say it anyway, just to hear the gentle, preemptive reprimand that underscored her instructions and to watch her mouth form the words.

He followed her directions as given, like he had every night since she departed, then dressed for bed. He had just finished pulling on fresh boxers when his mobile rang. He smiled at the sight of her number and sat on the side of the bed. He flipped open the phone and answered.

“Mulder.”

“It’s me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for reading Part III of You're Not Alone!
> 
> I'm not always the best about responding to commenters but I wanted to thank each and every one of you who took the time to leave comments and kudos on my story. 
> 
> I plan to extend this series into a fourth part. I have a few chapters written already and will continue to write so long as may muse is content to do so. *fingers crossed*
> 
> Again, thank you so much for reading!


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